/  o  .   Sa."^' 


Jffrnm  ttjf  Slibrarg  nf 

ISpqupatl|p5  bg  I|im  to 

tl|F  Sltbrarg  nf 

Prtitrptnn  Jillifobgtral  g>fmtnary 

ALAlc 


6CC 


Christian  Faith  and  the  New 
Psychology 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2011  witii  funding  from 

Princeton  Tlieological  Seminary  Library 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/cliristianfaitlineOOmurr 


Christian  Faith  and 
the  New  Psychology 

Evolution  and  Recent  Science 
As  Aids  to  Faith 


By 
DAVID  A.'  MURRAY,  D.D. 

Late  Principal  of  the  Osaka  Theological  Training 
School.     Author  of  ^'^  Atoms  and  Energies"  etc. 


New  York        Chicago        Toronto 

Fleming    H.    Re  veil    Company 

London    and      Edinburgh 


Copyright,    1911,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  123  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      100    Princes    Street 


Preface 

THESE  essays  attempt  to  face  some  of  the 
newer  developments  of  science  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  living  Christian  faith.  Sci- 
ence is  constantly  advancing,  and  the  discoveries  of 
a  few  years  often  necessitate  an  entirely  new  outlook 
upon  life.  This  was  true  of  the  great  law  of  evolu- 
tion. It  seems  to  be  nearly  as  true  in  the  field  which 
is  being  explored  by  the  new  experimental  psy- 
chology. The  author  has  tried  to  take  his  view- 
point from  the  advance  line  of  both  these  studies,  and 
to  ask  himself  whether  the  old  faith  in  God,  Christ  and 
the  Bible  is  still  possible.  It  will  be  gratifying  if  we 
find  that  the  deep  excavations  of  the  new  science, 
instead  of  undermining  the  old  foundations,  only 
show  that  they  reach  down  to  the  everlasting  rock. 

It  is  recognized  by  all  thinkers  that  there  must 
have  been  some  kind  of  an  extra-mechanical  agency 
or  "  First  Cause  "  operating  at  the  beginning  of  the 
present  great  universe  process  to  originate  or  start  it. 
But  what  was  its  character  ?    That  is  the  real  problem. 

That  agency  must  have  been  an  agency  similar  to 
the  spirit  of  man  because  the  thing  that  it  must  have 
done  is  something  that  no  other  known  agency  in 
the  universe  is  ever  known  to  do,  but  it  is  precisely 
the  thing  which  just  that  one  agency,  namely  the 
soul  or  life  principle  of  man  constantly  does,  and 
which  it  is  its  specific  nature  to  do. 

In  every  act  of  volition  by  man,  the  will  or  spirit 

5 


6  PREFACE 

of  the  man,  somehow,  somewhere, — in  some  central 
brain  cell  perhaps, — so  controls  some  quantum  of 
energy  that  it  comes  into  activity  at  just  a  certain 
given  time,  and  not  before  or  after,  whereas  left  to 
itself,  without  that  control,  it  would  not  have  done  so. 

The  problem  of  creation  as  science  sees  it  is  not 
to  account  for  the  existence  of  matter  and  energies, 
for  that  is  conceded  impracticable,  but  to  account  for 
the  great  process  of  progressive  activity  beginning, 
— that  is  to  say  beginning  at  just  the  point  of  time 
to  bring  it  to  the  present  condition  at  the  present 
time.  The  act  that  the  spirit  of  man  does  in  voli- 
tion, as  noted  above,  is  an  act  on  a  small  scale  of 
precisely  the  same  character,  namely,  starting  a  train 
of  activity.  This,  therefore,  shows  what  kind  of  an 
agency  would  be  capable  of  doing  that  kind  of  a 
thing.  It  therefore  shows  what  kind  of  an  agency 
the  "  First  Cause  "  must  have  been. 

The  teleological  argument,  in  the  form  stated  by 
Paley,  has  become  invalidated  by  evolution.  Things 
have  become  what  they  are  because  of  their  environ- 
ment, at  least  in  part.  They  have  run  into  it  and 
been  moulded  by  it,  as  the  melted  metal  is  shaped 
by  the  mould  into  which  it  runs.  But  where  did 
that  mould  come  from  ?  There  is  the  argument  and 
the  significant  evidence  of  teleology.  Only  by  the 
cooperating  and  coordinating  of  hundreds  of  diverse 
conditions  has  this  evolved  product  been  made  pos- 
sible. A  slight  change  only  in  any  one  of  these 
hundreds  of  conditions  would  have  rendered  the 
high  result  impossible.     How  does  it  come  that  just 


PREFACE  7 

the  right  selection  and  arrangement  of  conditions 
was  furnished  ?     There  is  the  real  proof  of  design. 

Many  psychologists  who  have  made  a  special 
study  of  that  phase  of  the  subject  are  convinced  that 
thought  transference  from  mind  to  mind  without 
physical  agency  is  sometimes  actually  accomplished. 
When  so  accomplished  the  person  receiving  the 
communication  is  preferably  in  that  peculiar  second- 
ary mental  condition  in  which  the  so-called  "  sub- 
conscious "  is  dominant,  of  which  familiar  instances 
are  trance,  ecstasy,  the  hypnotic  state,  and  perhaps 
common  sleep.  Now  this  is  precisely  the  state  in 
which  the  prophets  and  others  were  reputed  to  have 
received  communications  from  God.  Thus,  while 
the  mere  fact  of  a  trance  or  vision  is  in  itself  a  nat- 
ural psychical  phenomenon,  and  not,  as  once  be- 
lieved, a  supernatural,  objective  appearance  of  God 
or  of  some  other  person,  yet  on  the  other  hand,  that 
state  is  precisely  the  condition  in  which  a  communi- 
cation from  God  would  be  likely  to  be  received  if  it 
were  to  be  received.  And  moreover  it  would  be 
quite  in  accord  with  our  latest  studies  as  to  the 
powers  of  the  mind  in  this  "  subconscious "  condi- 
tion if  it  did  thus  receive  direct  communications  from 
the  mind  of  God.  This  principle  has  application  not 
only  to  prophecy  and  inspiration,  but  also,  in  a 
modified  form,  to  the  influences  observed  in  modern 
revivals,  and  to  the  continual  guidance  given  by 
God's  Spirit  to  all  Christians. 

Evolution  is  not  a  finished  process  that  has  reached 
its  zenith  in  man,  nor  is  its  work  confined  to  perfect- 


8  PREFACE 

ing  the  physical  organism  only.  It  has  a  future 
course  yet  to  ascend.  And  it  is  equally  concerned 
with  the  psychical  nature.  Indeed  in  its  higher 
ranges  in  man  that  is  the  most  important  part  of  its 
work.  In  this  respect  evolution  in  knowledge  is 
important,  but  even  more  important  is  evolution  in 
all  those  personal  and  social  traits  which  we  may 
group  under  the  title  of  "  Fellowship."  The  next 
advance  step  to  be  achieved  in  this  line  is  evolution 
into  the  possibility  and  practice  of  fellowship  with 
God.  A  race  of  beings  capable  of  and  habitually 
practicing  that  would  be  a  new  biological  species, 
as  much  advanced  beyond  ordinary  man  as  one 
species  usually  is  advanced  beyond  another. 

But  fellowship  is  necessarily  a  mutual  affair.  In 
order  to  develop  this  fellowship,  and  to  offer  the 
facilities  for  the  originating  of  such  a  higher  species, 
God  must  afford  to  men  acts  of  a  personal  and  indi- 
vidual nature.  The  evolution  theory  therefore  itself 
demands  that  such  acts  be  done,  for  at  every  upward 
step  the  facilities  for  making  that  step  possible  have 
always  been  afforded,  and  it  would  therefore  be 
"a  break  in  the  uniformity  of  nature"  if  these 
things,  the  necessary  facilities  for  this  next  most  im- 
portant upward  step,  were  not  also  afforded. 

We  have  here,  therefore,  the  full  justification,  from 
the  scientific  point  of  view,  of — (i)  miracles,  (2)  the 
incarnation,  and  (3)  answered  prayer.  The  primary 
intention  and  use  of  each  and  all  of  these  is  precisely 
to  afford  to  men  personal  acts  by  God  which  they 
would  feel  as  personal  acts  of  God  towards  them, 


PREFACE  9 

and  be  enabled  thereby  to  have  a  feeling  of  fellow- 
ship towards  God.  Ail  other  results  from  them  are 
secondary.  Not  the  atonement,  not  the  benefits 
received  through  prayer  or  miracles,  but  the  things 
themselves,  were  the  primary  object,  as  contributing 
towards  fellowship. 

The  latest  investigations  of  psychology  have  quite 
changed  the  accepted  conception  of  personality  and 
consciousness.  It  is  now  a  frequently  observed  and 
well  attested  condition  for  two  or  more  centres  of 
consciousness  and  memory  to  develop  in  the  same 
man,  having  mutually  towards  each  other  all  the 
mental  characteristics  of  two  or  more  persons.  This 
condition  is  often  produced  pathologically,  and  it 
can  also  be  produced  experimentally  in  the  psycho- 
logical laboratory,  for  instance  by  hypnotism.  It  is 
therefore  demonstrated  that  there  may  be,  as  func- 
tions of  one  and  the  same  spirit,  two  or  more  streams 
of  activity,  consciousness,  memory,  will,  in  every 
apparent  respect  the  same  as  though  it  were  two 
separate  individuals  acting,  perceiving,  remember- 
ing, and  willing,  but  yet  it  is  all  the  functioning  of 
one  and  the  same  spirit. 

When  we  apply  this  latest  discovery  to  the  tradi- 
tional teaching  as  to  the  trinity  and  the  person  of 
Christ,  all  the  difficulties  from  the  scientific  side 
entirely  disappear.  Two,  three  or  any  number  of 
"  persons "  existing  in  the  one  God,  each  having 
towards  the  others  all  the  experiences  of  separate- 
ness  and  objectivity,  would  be  entirely  in  accord 
with  what  the  latest  science  has  demonstrated  the 


lO  PREFACE 

nature  of  spirit  to  be.  It  would  also  be  possible  to 
suppose  the  same  being,  who  with  infinite  power  and 
wisdom  is  ruling  and  upholding  the  universe,  at  the 
same  time  to  be  going  through  and  feeling  all  the 
experiences  of  a  man,  with  a  small,  limited  con- 
sciousness, memory  and  general  capacity. 

Love  is  a  state  of  mind  in  which  a  person  feels  all 
the  pleasure  or  pain  he  sees  the  loved  one  receive. 
It  constitutes  therefore  a  partial  unification  of  two 
individuals  or  souls,  in  such  a  way  that  it  might 
afford  the  ground  whereby  there  would  be  no  incon- 
gruity in  one  receiving  the  inflicted  pain  due  for  the 
other's  faults. 

Just  as  a  father  suffers  pain  on  seeing  the  sin  and 
shame  of  a  loved  son,  God  feels  pain  on  seeing  the 
sin  and  shame  of  His  loved  ones.  When  God  re- 
vealed Himself  in  the  small  dimensions  of  a  man,  for 
the  first  time  that  suffering  became  apparent  so  that 
we  could  see  it. 

Just  as  grief  for  a  wayward  son  often  shortens  a 
parent's  life,  so  it  was  the  burden  of  pain  over  those 
He  loved  which  caused  the  death  of  Jesus.  The 
cause  of  His  death  was  not  the  pain  of  the  cross,  but 
love,  and  the  pain  love  feels  on  seeing  the  sin  and 
ruin  of  those  loved.  That  pain,  felt  all  through  His 
life,  culminated  at  the  last  and  crushed  out  His  life, 
for  it  was  too  great  for  the  measure  of  human 
strength  to  bear,  though  with  divine,  infinite  strength 
God  bears  it  all  the  time. 

D.  A.  Murray. 

Ottumwa^  la. 


Contents 

Part  I 
GOD  AND  NATURE 

I.  Nature  of  the  Evidence    .         .         .         •       ^7 

Meaning  of  the  term  "  God  " — Method  of  proof — 
What  we  are  seeking  to  prove — Kinds  of  argu- 
ment and  order  of  their  use. 

II.  ^Etiological  Argument — "  First   Cause  "       33 

What  does  this  argument  prove — Necessity  of  some 
extra-physical  agency's  work — Nature  of  that 
extra-physical  agency — A  known  agency  which 
produces  that  kind  of  result — Validity  of  this  con- 
clusion— Starting  the  universe  process — What  we 
have  established — Relative  nature  of  all  scientific 
certainty — Further  inferences — Ultimate  "  First 
Cause  " — "  First  Cause  "  a  fully  developed  in- 
telligence. 

III.  COSMOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT     ....  78 

IV.  Teleological  Argument    .         .         .         •       8i 

What  the  argument  is  intended  to  prove — Reality  of 
evidence  of  design  in  animal  structure — Things  in 
inanimate  nature  that  fit  men's  needs — Adaptations 
which  do  not  have  a  genetic  origin — Design  in  or- 
ganic nature — Strongest  proof  of  design  is  the  fact 
of  a  suitable  environment — Other  lines  of  adapta- 
tion. 

V.  Other  Lines  of  Argument        .        ,        .119 


Part  II 

REVELATION 

I.         Definition 127 

'•  Revelation  "  naturally  follows  proof  of  God's  exist- 
ence— Meaning  of  the  term  "  Revelation  " — Has 
God  ever  made  such  a  revelation  ? 

XI 


12  CONTENTS 

II.  Science  and  Revelation      ....     138 

Science  does  not  declare  against  a  revelation — The 
evolution  process  calls  for  a  revelation — Method 
of  revelation — Experimental  psychology — Subcon- 
scious mind  the  instrument  of  direct  thought  trans- 
ference— Claim  of  the  Bible  to  be  a  revelation — 
Inspiration — Revivals — God's  spirit  in  revivals. 

III.  The  Bible  as  a  Revelation        .         .         '179 

Nature  of  the  contents  of  the  Bible — Objection  made 
to  some  parts — God's  indorsement  constitutes  it 
revelation — The  creation  stories — Anthropomorphic 
conceptions  of  God — Picture  of  primitive  man — 
Origin  of  sin — Unity  of  the  race — Place  in  the  evo- 
lution scheme — Immoral  acts  of  Bible  heroes. 


Part  III 
CHRISTOLOGY 

I.  Person  of  Christ 231 

God  appearing  in  the  form  of  man — Place  in  the  evo- 
lution scheme — Evolution  theory  calls  for  an  incar- 
nation— If  God  is  love  Pie  would  so  appear  to  men 
— True  purpose  of  the  incarnation — Possibility  of 
the  incarnation — New  conceptions  as  to  the  nature 
of  personality — "  Multiple  Personality  " — Not  an 
explanation  but  a  parallel  of  the  statements  made  of 
God — Two  natures  in  Christ. 

II.  Miracles 273 

Prejudices — False  definition  of  miracles — Control  of 
spirit  over  physical  energy — Philosophical  objections 
— Place  in  the  evolution  scheme — All  personal  in- 
tercourse must  have  an  extra-physical  element. 

III.  Prayer 289 

Objections — Prayer  itself  the  object, — for  fellowship — 
Interference  with  the  course  of  nature. 

IV.  Atonement         ......     298 

Various  views — Can  one  suffer  for  another's  faults 
— Love  causes  a  unity  as  far  as  suffering  is  con- 
cerned— Genesis  of  the  instinct  of  guilt  and  punish- 
ment— Meaning  and  grounds  of  "  Forgiveness  of 
Sin  " — Christians  are  a  new  biological  species. 


CONTENTS  13 

V.        Meaning  OF  THE  Death  OF  Christ    .         .318 

Death  not  caused  by  the  wounds  of  the  cross — The 
real  cause  was  suffering  through  love  for  sinful  men 
— Not  the  act  but  the  love  that  it  represents  signif- 
icant— Jesus'  finite  personality  first  made  God's  suf- 
fering love  visible — Biblical  expressions  as  to  the 
atonement — The  supreme  fact  is  the  love  of  God. 

Appendix  A.  The  Mind  ....  337 
Appendix  B.  Telepathy  ....  343 
Appendix  C.     Multiple  Personality         .     369 


PART  I 
God  and  Nature 


I 

NATURE  OF  THE  EVIDENCE 

MAN  is  a  religious  being.  There  is  no  race 
of  civilized  men  without  well-established 
religion.  Various  inferences  may  be  drawn 
from  this  fact,  but  whatever  the  inferences  the  fact 
remains  a  fact.  So  universal  a  fact  must  have  a 
basis  in  the  fundamental  constitution  of  things.  This 
does  not  mean  that  religion  must  come  under  the 
domain  and  survey  of  physical  science.  Still  taking 
science  in  the  broad  sense  of  "  Classified  Knowledge" 
it  does  constitute  a  part  of  the  field  of  science.  And 
as  the  universe  is  one  and  consistent  we  may  even 
expect  that  there  will  be  some  bonds  of  relationship 
between  its  facts  and  the  facts  of  all  branches  of 
science. 

Religion  is  commonly  considered  to  include  two 
categories  : — Morals,  the  category  of  rightness  and 
duty,  and  worship,  the  category  of  relation  to  a 
superhuman  authority  and  power.  In  recent  years, 
especially  in  the  Christian  religion,  the  greater  em- 
phasis is  coming  to  be  placed  upon  the  former  of 
these,  morals  and  right  conduct.  While  this  is  true 
yet  it  is  especially  true  in  the  Christian  religion,  that 
a  deep  sense  of  relation  to  the  authority  of  the  being 
above  us  is  the  most  effective  motive  in  producing 
that  right  conduct.     And  not  only  so,  but  the  wish 

17 


l8  GOD   AND   NATURE 

of  the  being  above  us  is  believed  to  exactly  and  per- 
fectly correspond  with  the  perfect  path  of  right  con- 
duct. It  would  also  appear  both  in  a  historical  study 
and  in  a  comparison  of  contemporary  religious  sys- 
tems, that  in  religion  as  a  recognized  and  systema- 
tized institution  the  latter  category, — worship  and 
recognition  of  the  existence  and  authority  of  a  su- 
perior being  or  beings, — is  the  more  fundamental. 
There  are  many  religious  cults  in  which  ethics  and 
the  inculcation  of  right  rules  of  conduct  is  given  very 
subordinate  place,  indeed  in  some  the  help  of  the 
gods  may  be  invoked  in  aid  of  crime  as  well  as  of 
virtue. 

If  worship  and  belief  in  God  is  so  fundamental 
in  religion,  the  next  inquiry  is  as  to  the  basis  of 
that  belief.  There  may  be  two  lines  of  inquiry  here. 
First, — Historical,  as  to  the  genesis  of  the  belief,  and 
Second, — Logical,  as  to  the  present  grounds  of  the 
belief.  The  former  inquiry  is  interesting,  and  its  re- 
sults may  have  some  bearing  on  the  latter  inquiry  as 
to  the  grounds  of  the  belief.  But  as  a  practical  issue 
it  is  the  latter  inquiry,  as  to  the  reasons  and  grounds 
for  believing  in  the  existence  of  God,  that  is  the  more 
important,  and  it  is  that  inquiry  that  will  be  taken  up 
here. 

The  recognized  grounds  for  believing  in  the  ex- 
istence of  God  may  be  divided  into  two  classes, 
which  are  generally  designated  by  the  terms,  "  Reve- 
lation "  and  "  Reason."  These  popular  terms  are 
not  at  all  exact,  but  by  the  former  term  is  intended 
personal  communications  from  God  to  men,  in  the 


NATURE   OF  THE   EVIDENCE  I9 

same  sense  in  which  one  man  communicates  his 
thoughts  to  another.  By  the  latter  term,  "  Reason," 
it  is  intended  to  include  all  other  lines  of  proof  which 
man's  reason  can  draw  from  known  facts  of  the 
universe. 

We  will  first  take  up  the  latter  class,  the  proofs 
that  men  believe  they  can  find  in  the  observed  and 
known  facts  of  the  universe  (aside  from  revelations) 
of  the  existence  and  character  of  God. 

MEANING  OF  THE  TERM  GOD 

It  is  essential  to  bear  in  mind  from  the  outset  a 
very  important  distinction.  What  do  we  mean  by 
the  word  "  God "  and  the  existence  of  God  ?  It 
would  be  quite  possible  on  the  one  hand  to  so  frame 
our  definition  of  God  that  it  would  be  practically 
impossible  to  find  any  proof,  in  this  field,  of  His  ex- 
istence, or  on  the  other  hand,  to  so  frame  it  that  in 
the  nature  of  things  the  existence  of  God  must  be 
considered  self-evident.  For  instance,  a  Pantheist 
might  make  his  definition  in  this  way.  "  The  word 
'  God '  shall  be  used  as  a  term  to  designate  '  that 
basis  and  underlying  efficiency  which  manifests 
itself  in  and  through  the  phenomenal,  or  known 
universe.'  "  With  such  a  definition,  of  course,  there 
would  be  no  possibility  of  even  making  a  question 
of  God's  existence.  The  phenomena  of  the  universe 
exist,  so  necessarily  the  basis  or  efficiency  which  pro- 
duces those  phenomena  must  exist.  The  existence 
of  God  is  implied  and  necessitated  by  the  very  terms 
of  the  definition  itself.     But  though  in  that  easy  way 


20  GOD  AND  NATURE 

we  would  nominally  establish  "  the  existence  of 
God,"  we  would  not  only  know  nothing  as  to  God's 
character  but  we  would  not  have  even  the  remote 
suggestion  of  any  connection,  not  to  say  identity, 
between  that  God  and  the  God  of  gods  that  are 
worshipped  in  religion  and  considered  to  have  au- 
thority over  men's  conduct. 

On  the  other  hand,  going  to  the  other  extreme, 
we  may  take  up  the  proposition  that  Moses  met  with 
and  talked  to  God  on  Mount  Sinai,  and  received 
from  Him  the  "  Ten  Commandments "  written  by 
His  hands  on  two  tables  of  stone,  and  we  may  make 
our  definition  of  the  term  "  God  "  as  the  proper  name 
of  that  person  whom  Moses  there  met,  just  as 
"  Moses  "  was  his  own  proper  name.  Then  our  in- 
quiry would  be  :  "  Did  or  does  that  person  exist  ?  " 
just  as  we  would  make  the  other  inquiry :  "  Did 
Moses  exist  or  is  the  story  about  him  merely  im- 
aginary?" With  such  a  definition  it  is  evident  that, 
outside  of  the  province  which  we  have  termed 
"  Revelation,"  it  would  be  impossible  to  find  any 
proof  or  even  any  evidence  bearing  on  the  question 
at  all  directly. 

Very  much  of  the  confusion,  and  very  much  of 
the  unsatisfactoriness  in  discussions  of  this  question 
of  the  existence  of  God,  arises  from  this  lack  of  ex- 
actness in  definition.  I  take  up  an  argument  pur- 
porting to  be  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  and  it 
is  a  valid  argument  making  good  its  proof  of  what 
it  starts  out  to  establish.  But  it  does  not  prove  what 
I  have  in  mind.     I  have  in  my  mind  an  exalted  idea 


NATURE   OF  THE   EVIDENCE  21 

of  the  holy,  loving,  sympathizing  heavenly  Father 
whom  I  worship,  and  as  I  read  that  argument  1  say 
to  myself :  "It  does  not  prove  the  existence  of  this 
God  whom  I  worship,"  and  so  I  put  it  aside  as  value- 
less to  me.  Perhaps  this  would  be  true  of  any  or  all 
the  arguments  and  proofs  that  can  be  found  in  this 
domain  of  reason  or  "  Natural  Religion."  And  for 
this  reason  some  people  say  that  the  existence  of 
God  cannot  be  proved  at  all  and  if  accepted  it  must 
be  accepted  as  an  act  of  "faith."  We  must  believe 
it  simply  because  we  want  to  believe  it,  or  because 
it  is  our  duty  to  believe  it,  or  something  of  that 
kind.  But  that  is  to  stultify  religious  faith  and  to 
utterly  misunderstand  the  nature  of  evidence  and 
proof. 

On  such  principles  we  never  could  prove  the  ex- 
istence of  any  body  that  we  did  not  have  before  our 
sight,  nor  indeed  identify  any  body  that  we  did  see. 
Take,  for  instance,  a  very  extreme  case.  I  have  in 
mind  a  human  person,  a  being  of  love,  kindness, 
wisdom,  honour,  etc.,  whom  I  have  always  called  by 
the  name  of  "  My  Mother."  I  look  about  and  see 
her  sitting  beside  me  in  the  room.  But  on  the 
principles  suggested  above  I  never  could  be  sure 
that  it  was  really  my  mother,  the  person  of  love, 
wisdom,  honour,  etc.,  which  I  have  always  had  in 
mind.  All  I  really  see  is  a  face,  hands  and  some 
clothing.  That  is  not  a  human  person,  the  being  of 
love,  wisdom,  honour,  etc.,  which  I  have  had  in 
mind,  but  merely  an  expanse  of  material  substance 
reflecting  light  into  my  eyes.     Yet  I  positively  do 


22  GOD   AND   NATURE 

know  that  that  is  my  mother,  the  same  being  that  1 
have  had  in  mind,  and  that  all  those  attributes  of 
love,  wisdom,  honour,  etc.,  are  really  there,  though 
I  do  not  see  them,  but  only  see  an  expanse  of 
material  substance.  For  many  and  obvious  rea- 
sons, whenever  I  see  that  particular  visible  form  I 
know  that  it  is  my  mother's  form  and  that  all  the 
invisible  spiritual  attributes  of  love,  wisdom, 
honour,  etc.,  are  there,  even  though  I  cannot  see 
them  but  only  see  a  material  expanse.  I  see  only 
what  the  faculty  of  sight  is  capable  of  seeing  and 
thereupon  for  valid  reasons  I  infer  that  the  other 
attributes  which  sight  cannot  reveal  are  also 
present. 

That  is  the  correct  principle  of  evidence.  If  it 
were  a  case  of  hearing  I  would  perceive  only  what 
the  faculty  of  hearing  is  adapted  to  reveal,  namely, 
a  sound,  but  I  would  infer  the  presence  of  the  other 
spiritual  and  visual  attributes.  When  I  hear  the 
familiar  voice  I  would  be  foolish  to  say,  because  I 
do  not  hear  the  familiar  colour  and  shape,  it  cannot 
be  my  mother.  I  hear  what  can  be  heard  and 
rightly  infer  that  the  rest  is  present  also. 

Just  so  in  the  question  before  us.  By  the  proc- 
esses of  science  and  reasoning  we  perceive  or 
prove  the  existence  of  certain  attributes  inhering 
in  some  being  and  it  is  no  disparagement  that  those 
attributes  are  07ily  part  of  the  attributes  w^e  would 
expect  to  find  in  the  being  we  have  in  mind  under 
the  name  of  God, — namely,  only  the  attributes  that 
those   processes   are   suited   to   perceive   or   prove. 


NATURE   OF   THE   EVIDENCE  23 

What  we  rightly  ought  to  say  is  this :  "  By  these 
processes  of  science  and  reasoning  we  have  dis- 
covered the  existence  of  a  being  with  the  following 
attributes,  etc.,  and  those  attributes  as  far  as  they  go 
are  all  attributes  of  the  being  we  have  had  in  mind 
under  the  name  of  God."  We  have  gone  a  long 
way  towards  proving  the  existence  of  the  being  we 
had  in  mind,  and  if  the  attributes  we  have  dis- 
covered and  proved  are  fundamental  and  important 
enough  we  may  reasonably  say  we  have  sufficiently 
proved  it. 

To  take  another  illustration :  Suppose  a  mariner 
adrift  on  the  great  ocean  should  some  night  see 
through  a  rift  in  the  mist  numerous  glints  of  light  in 
the  distance,  and  find  floating  in  the  water  around 
him  fragments  of  broken  implements  and  fabrics,  he 
would  immediately  say,  "  There  is  land  just  ahead, 
and  a  city  where  I  can  find  rescue  and  safety,  and 
find  there  men  and  women,  stores  and  factories, 
schools,  books,  homes,  love,  companionship  and 
everything  I  need."  He  would  be  perfectly  justified 
in  saying  so,  although  all  that  he  had  actually 
seen  was  some  utterly  useless  fragments  of  wood 
and  some  lights.  He  had  seen  only  some  of  the 
things  that  would  exist  if  a  populous  civilized 
city  were  there, — only  a  very,  very  few  of  them, 
and  yet  he  was  justified  in  inferring  that  all  the 
million  other  much  more  important  things  were 
there  also.  Somewhat  similar  to  this,  perhaps, 
will  be  the  force  of  the  proof  we  draw  from  reason 
and    nature    of  the   existence   of   such  a  being  as 


24  GOD   AND   NATURE 

we   have   in  mind  and  worship  as  "  Our  heavenly 
Father." 

Two  cautions  are  necessary  in  making  use  of 
such  reasoning  and  proofs.  First :  Could  the  indi- 
cations we  have  seen  have  been  produced  by  some 
other  agency?  For  instance:  Could  the  fragments 
he  has  seen  be  debris  from  some  sunken  ship, 
and  the  lights  due  to  phosphorescence  or  some  sea 
insect  ?  If  any  such  other  explanation  were  possible 
then  of  course  he  could  not  be  sure  there  was  land 
and  a  city  near.  Still,  in  the  second  place,  even  in 
that  case  we  would  not  be  compelled  to  decide  that 
there  was  not.  We  must  balance  the  probabilities 
and  decide  which  was  the  more  probable  cause  of 
what  we  saw.  If,  however,  the  case  was  such  that 
no  other  explanation  but  land  and  a  city  was  possi- 
ble then  the  proof  would  be  complete. 

METHOD   OF   PROOF 

In  seeking  to  determine,  then,  what  evidence 
there  is  in  nature  of  the  existence  of  God  the  proper 
method  will  be  to  inquire  first :  Are  the  material, 
physical  and  mechanical  agencies  and  laws  insuffi- 
cient fully  to  account  for  all  the  phenomena  that  we 
know  of,  and  must  there  have  been  some  other  ex- 
tra-physical or  extra-mechanical  agency  concerned? 
And,  in  the  second  place :  If  so,  would  the  kind  of 
being  or  agency  that  would  be  required  to  account 
for  it  all  necessarily  or  even  probably  be  a  being 
with  at  least  some  of  the  attributes  of  the  being  we 
have  in  mind  under  the  name  of  God.     If  we  find 


NATURE  OF  THE  EVIDENCE  25 

that  the  material  and  physical  agencies  would  not 
have  been  sufficient,  and  there  would  have  been 
required  some  other  agency  different  from  and 
transcending  all  the  physical  and  mechanical 
agencies,  that  will  be  the  conclusive  proof  of  the 
existence  of  some  extra-mechanical  agency  or  being. 
The  existence  of  some  great  being  will  be  then 
proved,  and  the  next  step  will  be  to  carefully  exam- 
ine all  the  signs  and  evidence,  either  in  the  work 
that  must  have  been  done  or  from  other  sources,  to 
find  out  as  much  as  possible  about  the  character  and 
attributes  of  that  great  extra-mechanical  agency  or 
being  whose  existence  we  have  demonstrated.  Just 
as  the  mariner,  seeing  the  lights  and  the  floating 
substances,  knows  that  there  is  something  different 
here  from  what  he  has  before  experienced,  and  he 
examines  these  things  and  studies  about  them  to  try 
to  determine  what  the  nature  of  that  "something 
different"  may  be,  whether  it  is  likely  to  be  the 
land  he  longs  for,  or  something  else. 

Suppose,  as  we  examine  those  signs  and  that  evi- 
dence, we  find  that  it  indicates  a  being  entirely  dif- 
ferent and  opposite  from  the  being  we  have  in  mind 
and  call  God.  In  that  case  we  must  say  that  we 
have  not  found  any  evidence  in  nature  and  reason  of 
the  existence  of  God.  We  are  not  warranted  in  say- 
ing this  proves  that  He  does  not  exist,  but  only  that 
this  being  we  have  discovered  is  not  He.  He  might 
exist  even  if  there  were  no  evidence  of  His  existence 
in  nature  around  us,  or  rather  no  evidence  that  we 
have  as  yet  discovered.     Just  as  land  might  be  really 


26  GOD   AND   NATURE 

near  though  the  mariner  had  as  yet  seen  no  indica- 
tions of  it. 

Suppose,  again,  that  the  characteristics  and  at- 
tributes we  find  are  the  same,  as  far  as  they  go,  as 
those  of  the  being  we  have  in  mind.  Suppose,  for 
instance,  we  find  that  this  being  must  have  been  a 
being  with  infinite  power,  but  find  no  indications  to 
prove  that  He  had  also  knowledge,  or  suppose  we 
find  indications  of  infinite  power  and  infinite  knowl- 
edge but  no  indications  to  prove  that  He  also  had 
justice  and  love.  In  this  case  two  or  three  different 
conclusions  would  be  possible.  We  might  say  :  (i) 
"  A  being  with  these  attributes  exists,  but  as  to  the 
being  we  have  had  in  mind  and  called  God,  there  is 
no  evidence  whether  He  does  exist  or  not."  Or  (2) 
"This  being  whose  existence  we  have  proved  is 
really  God,  the  same  person  we  have  had  in  mind, 
only  we  have  been  mistaken  somewhat  as  to  His 
character  and  He  is  a  somewhat  different  being  from 
what  we  supposed."  Or  we  might  say  :  (3)  "  Since 
this  being  whose  existence  we  have  proved  is 
the  same,  as  far  as  we  have  found  out  about  Him  as 
the  being  we  have  had  in  mind  and  called  God,  He 
probably  is  the  same  being  and  has  all  the  attributes 
we  have  considered  God  to  have,  only  we  have 
not  yet  found  here  the  evidence  of  the  other  at- 
tributes." 

For  instance  :  Suppose  it  were  possible  to  perfecdy 
account  for  the  existence  and  the  origin  of  everything 
we  see  in  the  universe  by  means  of  the  merely  me- 
chanical forces  and  laws  of  nature  alone.     In  that 


NATURE  OF  THE  EVIDENCE  2^ 

case  we  must  say  merely  that  we  do  not  find  any 
evidence  in  nature  of  such  a  God  as  we  have  had  in 
mind.  He  may  exist  or  may  not  exist,  but  nature 
has  no  evidence  to  give  on  the  subject.  If  there  is 
evidence  in  other  fields, — for  instance  a  sufficiently 
attested  revelation, — that  is  another  question,  but 
nature  has  nothing  to  say  on  the  question.  It  sim- 
ply is  not  a  witness. 

Suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it  is  entirely  im- 
possible to  account  for  the  existence  and  origin  of 
things,  and  for  their  being  now  in  the  condition  they 
are,  by  means  of  the  known  mechanical  forces  and 
laws  of  nature,  or  by  means  of  any  merely  mechan- 
ical forces  and  laws  that  we  are  able  to  conceive  or 
imagine.  But  suppose  we  could  account  for  all  in 
case  there  existed  a  being  in  the  universe  with  in- 
finite directing  power,  and  further  that  only  a  being 
with  infinite  directing  power  could  produce  such  a 
universe  as  we  see  :  In  that  case  we  have  proved 
the  existence  of  so77ie  extra-mechanical  being,  and 
there  would  be  logically  possible  any  one  of  the  three 
conclusions  described  above.  That  is  to  say  :  We 
would  know  certainly  that  a  being  with  infinite 
directing  power  must  exist  but  (i)  we  do  not  know 
from  this  evidence  conclusively  as  to  whether  the 
God  the  Christians  worship  exists  or  not,  or  (2)  this 
being  we  have  proved  to  exist  is  really  the  same 
being  that  the  Christians  worship,  only  they  are  mis- 
taken about  Him,  and  He  has  only  infinite  directing 
power  and  does  not  have  infinite  knowledge,  justice 
and  love  also,  or  (3)  since  it  is  proved  that  a  being 


28  GOD  AND  NATURE 

exists  which  has  infinite  directing  power,  it  would 
not  be  unreasonable  to  think  that  that  same  being 
also  has  infinite  knowledge,  justice  and  love,  and  so 
it  is  quite  possible  to  believe  that  it  is  one  and  the 
same  person  as  the  God  whom  Christians  worship. 
Any  one  of  these  three  conclusions  would  be  per- 
fectly possible  logically, — provided  there  was  only 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  directing  power,  and  ab- 
solutely no  evidence,  either  direct  or  indirect,  of  the 
existence  of  the  other  attributes  of  knowledge,  justice 
and  love. 

But  there  is  one  more  preliminary  consideration 
that  must  be  borne  in  mind.  Attributes  never  are 
found  single,  there  are  always  several  attributes  found 
combined  together,  and  if  one  is  present  the  others 
are  always  present.  For  instance,  if  we  find  that  a 
certain  object  has  weight  we  will  always  find  that  it 
has  colour  also,  and  that  it  has  temperature,  exten- 
sion and  some  other  attributes,  at  least  that  has  al- 
ways been  our  experience.  As  far  as  our  experience 
goes,  if  a  living  being  has  reasoning  power  it  also 
has  memory  and  will.  This  association  of  the  same 
attributes  together  is  a  well  known  and  well  defined 
fact  in  all  our  observation  and  study.  So  much  so  that 
certain  naturalists  have  claimed  that  if  they  see  one 
tooth  or  one  bone  only  of  any  animal  they  can,  from 
the  character  of  that,  tell  what  all  the  other  character- 
istics and  attributes  of  the  animal  were.  At  one  time 
certain  astronomers  proved  by  expert  calculations 
that  there  was  something  somewhere  in  the  solar 
system  whose  great  weight  was  affecting  the  orbits 


NATURE  OF  THE   EVIDENCE  29 

of  the  planets.  They  knew  absolutely  but  the  one 
thing  about  it,  namely,  that  it  had  weight,  and  had  no 
direct  evidence  that  it  had  any  other  attributes  at  all, 
but  for  all  that  as  soon  as  they  proved  that  it  was  a 
body  with  weight  they  were  just  as  sure  that  it  also 
had  extension,  colour  and  a  number  of  other  attri- 
butes, as  they  were  when  the  great  telescope  was 
brought  into  use  and  they  actually  saw  for  the  first 
time  the  planet  Neptune.  In  the  same  way  an 
archaeologist  finds  carved  ornaments  in  a  cave  that 
prove  that  a  being  has  lived  there  which  possessed 
artistic  taste.  With  only  that  one  fact  proved,  and 
no  other  evidence  to  base  his  belief  on,  he  would  still 
have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  that  same  being 
also  possessed  memory,  reasoning  powers  and  a 
number  of  other  important  attributes. 

The  same  therefore  will  be  true  of  the  evidence  as 
to  the  existence  of  God.  Suppose  we  find  proof  that 
a  being  exists  which  possesses,  for  instance,  infinite 
directive  power.  In  that  case,  even  though  there 
were  absolutely  no  direct  evidence  as  to  any  other 
of  that  being's  attributes,  that  fact  alone  of  his  pos- 
sessing infinite  directive  power  would  justify  us  in 
also  believing  that  he  had  the  other  essential  attri- 
butes which  we  have  always  found  in  all  beings  that 
were  endowed  with  directive  power.  Of  course  there 
are  essential  attributes  that  are  always  found  in  such 
beings,  and  there  are  accidental  or  unessential  at- 
tributes that  are  only  sometimes  found  in  them.  As 
to  the  second  there  would  be  the  possibility  of  their 
existence,  and  we  must  seek  further  proof  before  we 


30  GOD   AND   NATURE 

could  be  entirely  certain,  but  as  to  the  hfst  we  would 
be  sure  of  their  existence. 

KINDS  OF  ARGUMENT  AND  ORDER  OF  THEIR  USE 

In  seeking  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  by  the 
methods  of  "  Natural  Theology  "  or  reason,  there 
are  several  lines  of  argument  that  are  often  used. 
For  instance  there  is  the  "Etiological  Argument," 
that  is  the  argument  based  on  the  necessity  of  a  first 
cause  in  the  universe ;  the  "  Cosmological  Argu- 
ment "  or  the  argument  based  on  the  observed 
orderliness  of  all  things  in  the  universe  ;  the  "  Teleo- 
logical  Argument "  or  the  argument  based  on  the 
appearance  of  design  or  an  object  sought  after,  in 
the  construction  of  many  things  ;  the  "  Moral  Argu- 
ment "  based  on  men's  moral  convictions,  etc.,  etc. 

In  using  these  arguments  or  lines  of  proof  it  will 
be  very  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  some  of  the 
cautions  outlined  above.  A  critic  might  take  up 
any  one  of  these  arguments  and  claim  that  it  was 
not  conclusive,  or  not  satisfactory,  that  it  did  not 
furnish  conclusive  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  supreme 
being,  or  that  the  being  whose  existence  it  proved 
might  not  be  the  same  as  the  being  we  worship  as 
God.  But  the  real  force  of  these  arguments  is 
cumulative,  and  they  must  all  be  taken  together  to 
form  one  complete  argument,  as  they  supplement 
one  another. 

To  get  their  full  force,  they  should  be  taken  up  in 
the  order  given  above ;  that  is  : 

I.     Etiological  argument, — a  first  cause. 


NATURE   OF  THE   EVIDENCE  31 

2.  Cosmological  argument, — order  in  the  uni- 
verse. 

3.  Teleological  argument, — design  in  the  uni- 
verse. 

4.  Moral  argument,  and  various  others. 

The  aetiological  argument  should  be  taken  first, 
because  it  is  the  most  conclusive.  It  does  not  give 
evidence  for  so  many  of  the  attributes  of  the  supreme 
being  as  some  of  the  others  do,  but  its  evidence  is 
more  compelling  and  conclusive.  It  really  establishes 
the  existence  of  some  supreme  being  as  the  efficient 
cause  of  all  things,  and  that  once  settled,  when  the 
other  arguments  afterwards  bring  proof  of  order, 
design,  justice,  etc.,  in  the  universe,  it  is  quite 
logical  to  claim  that  that  proves  order,  design, 
justice,  etc.,  to  be  attributes  of  this  supreme  being. 
If  there  were  no  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a 
supreme  being,  then  even  though  we  did  find  in- 
dications of  order,  design,  justice,  etc.,  it  would  not 
be  impossible  to  demur  and  say  simply,  "  We  don't 
know  where  they  come  from."  "  We  can't  explain 
them."  But  having  once  determined  that  there  is 
some  kind  of  a  supreme  being  that  originated  all 
the  processes  and  changes  we  see,  then  if  among 
those  processes  which  it  originated  we  see  order, 
design,  justice,  etc.,  the  proof  is  logically  complete 
that  that  supreme  being  had  the  power  and  the  dis- 
position to  produce  order,  to  adapt  means  to  a 
worthy  end,  and  the  like,  because  we  see  precisely 
those  phenomena  in  the  things  which  it  has  done. 
If  the  first  argument  conclusively  establishes  that 


32  GOD  AND   NATURE 

some  being  or  agency  aside  from  and  above  the 
mechanical  forces  and  laws  of  nature  must  have 
operated  to  bring  about  all  the  phenomena  we  see, 
but  does  not  tell  us  very  definitely  as  to  the  char- 
acter and  attributes  of  that  being  or  agency,  then 
these  other  lines  of  argument,  by  examining  the 
work  which  is  thus  proved  to  be  the  work  of  that 
being  or  agent,  can  tell  from  the  character  of  that 
work  something  as  to  the  character  of  the  being  or 
agent  that  produced  that  work. 


II 

.ETIOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT— FIRST   CAUSE 

WHAT  IS  THIS  INTENDED  TO  PROVE 

ALL  these  various  lines  of  argument  have  been 
often  presented  and  are  doubtless  familiar, 
so  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  go  into  minute 
detail  with  all  of  them.  The  first,  however,  the 
"  ^Etiological  Argument,"  is  not  only  the  most 
fundamental  and  the  one  that  is  most  widely  relied 
on  and  which  recurs  most  naturally  to  most  people 
as  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  since  our  most 
vivid  conception  of  God  is  as  the  creator  or  first 
cause  of  all  things,  but  unfortunately  it  is  by  most 
persons  almost  always  somewhat  misunderstood  and 
misstated.  Moreover  the  recent  advance  of  science 
has  slightly  affected  the  form  and  matter  of  the 
proof,  in  this  case  fortunately  making  it  more  definite 
and  absolute  than  before. 

Just  what,  then,  is  the  "  Etiological  Argument," — 
the  argument  from  cause  and  effect, — and  just 
what  does  it  prove  ?  I  suppose  that  most  people 
would  say  at  once  that  it  proves  that  the  creator  of 
all  things  is  God.  But  that  is  not  correct.  As  to 
the  universe  or  sum  total  of  matter  and  force  which 

33 


34  GOD  AND  NATURE 

we  see  and  know  about,  it  does  not  prove  that  God 
created  it.  Indeed  it  does  not  prove  that  it  was 
created  at  all.  It  cannot  bring  valid  evidence  to 
prove  that  it  is  not  eternal  and  has  not  existed  for- 
ever. If  I  believe  beforehand  that  God  created  all 
things  then  this  argument  may  have  some  force  to 
confirm  and  reinforce  my  belief,  but  to  one  that 
denies  that  God  created  all  things  it  cannot  bring 
valid  proof  to  compel  him  to  believe  it. 

For  instance  if  I  say, — Nothing  can  exist  without 
a  cause ;  therefore  all  this  universe  of  matter  and 
forces  must  have  had  a  cause  and  I  will  call  that 
cause  God ;  he  will  very  pertinently  answer, — If 
nothing  can  exist  without  a  cause  then  this  being 
you  call  God  must  have  had  a  cause  also  and  who 
created  God  ?  If  I  reply  that  we  cannot  conceive 
of  an  infinite  recession  of  causes  each  one  being 
caused  by  one  before  it  to  infinity,  and  therefore 
our  minds  compel  us  to  think  that  there  must  have 
been  one  first  cause  that  was  not  caused  by  another 
cause  back  of  it,  and  that  first  cause  was  God, — 
he  will  again  reply, — If  one  thing  can  exist  without 
a  cause  another  may  also.  You  chose  to  say  that 
God  was  that  first  cause  and  I  chose  to  say  that 
the  universe  itself  was  that  first  cause  and  un- 
caused by  anything  else  behind  it.  If  I  still  contend 
that  God  would  be  a  more  suitable  being  to  be  a 
first  cause  than  the  universe,  he  will  reply  that  that 
is  merely  a  matter  of  my  opinion,  and  his  opinion  is 
that  the  universe  is  more  suitable,  and  moreover 
the  universe  is  a  thing  that  we  know  exists  and  it 


FIRST  CAUSE  35 

is  more  plausible  to  claim  as  the  first  cause  a  thing 
that  we  know  exists  than  a  thing  that  we  don't 
know  exists.  In  this  way  therefore  our  argument 
would  not  only  utterly  fail  to  convince  him,  but  he 
would  think  he  had  disproved  the  existence  of  God 
entirely. 

It  is  just  in  this  way  that  some  scientists  claim 
that  science  proves  that  God  does  not  exist,  or  that 
science  can  bring  no  proof  that  He  does  exist,  be- 
cause they  mistake  what  this  argument  from  cause 
and  effect  is  intended  to  prove.  It  will  be  important 
therefore  to  bear  carefully  in  mind  what  the  argu- 
ment is  not  intended  to  prove,  lest  we  be  inclined  to 
think  it  inconclusive  and  valueless  when  we  find 
that  it  does  not  prove  this  which  it  is  not  adapted  to 
prove. 

What  is  the  doctrine  of  "  cause  and  effect "  ? 
We  say  it  is  an  axiom,  a  self-evident  truth,  the 
nature  of  our  mind  is  such  that  we  cannot  doubt 
it  or  conceive  the  opposite  of  it.  But  what  is  it  that 
is  an  axiom,  and  that  our  minds  are  unable  to 
doubt  ?  It  is  not  the  proposition  that  everything 
must  have  had  a  cause.  That  is  not  a  self-evident 
truth  that  cannot  be  doubted.  It  can  be  and  is 
doubted.  Indeed  in  this  very  argument  we  are 
supposing  that  there  is  something,  namely,  God, 
which  did  not  have  a  cause  but  always  existed. 
If  our  minds  find  it  possible  to  conceive  that 
any  one  thing  can  exist  without  a  cause  then  it 
is  not  an  axiom  that  nothing  can  exist  without  a 
cause. 


36  GOD   AND   NATURE 

Nor  is  it  the  doctrine  that  "  nothing  can  come 
into  existence,  or  begin  to  exist,  without  a  cause." 
That  would  be  true,  and  an  axiom,  I  suppose, 
which  our  minds  would  not  be  able  to  doubt.  We 
could  not  conceive  of  the  possibility  of  anything 
beginning  to  exist  or  coming  into  existence  without 
a  cause.  But  such  a  proposition  would  not  help  us 
at  all  in  our  argument.  It  is  true  we  would  get  rid 
of  the  objection  that  God  must  have  had  a  cause, 
for  by  our  hypothesis  we  may  suppose  that  He  is 
eternal  and  never  began  to  exist  and  only  things 
when  they  begin  to  exist  have  a  cause.  But  on  the 
other  hand  the  opponent  might  equally  claim  that 
the  matter  and  force  in  the  universe  always  existed 
and  never  began  to  exist,  and  so  never  had  a  cause. 
In  fact  in  all  our  experience  we  have  never  had  any 
experience  of  any  atom  of  matter  "  beginning  to 
exist^^  or  coming  into  existence,  and  science  now 
tells  us  that  the  same  may  also  be  said  of  force. 
Such  a  doctrine  of  cause  and  effect  would  be  value- 
less, and  we  could  prove  nothing  by  it  because  there 
is  nothing  to  which  it  applies. 

Another  statement  of  the  doctrine  would  be  : — 
"  Every  effect  must  have  had  a  cause."  But  this, 
in  the  case  of  every  phenomenon  to  which  we  seek 
to  apply  it,  necessitates  another  question,  whether  it 
is  an  "  effect "  or  not.  If  we  can  prove  that  it  is 
an  effect  then  we  know  that  it  must  have  had  a 
cause.  But  the  definition  of  an  effect  is  "  some- 
thing that  is  produced  by  a  cause."  The  doctrine 
would  then  become  : — "  Everything  that  is  produced 


FIRST  CAUSE  37 

by  a  cause  must  have  had  a  cause."  This  is  a  mere 
tautology  and  has  no  value  at  all  of  any  kind.  We 
must  have  some  more  concrete  and  definite  definition 
of  just  what  it  is  that  our  minds  declare  must  have 
had  a  cause,  and  which  we  cannot  conceive  of  exist- 
ing without  a  cause. 

The  true  doctrine  of  cause  and  effect  is  that : — 
"  Every  change  must  have  had  a  cause."  No  change 
can  occur  without  some  cause  to  produce  it. 
Possibly  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  what 
our  minds  affirm  as  an  axiom  that  it  is  impossible 
for  us  not  to  believe  would  be  that : — "  Every  active 
change  must  have  a  cause."  That  is  to  say, 
whether  or  not  our  minds  could  conceive  the  possi- 
bility of  a  body  in  motion  stopping  without  any- 
thing to  cause  it  to  stop,  yet  we  could  not  conceive 
the  possibility  of  a  body  at  rest  beginning  to  move 
without  some  cause.  But  since  science  has  demon- 
strated the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy, 
namely,  that  it  takes  just  as  much  of  a  cause  to 
stop  a  body  in  motion  as  to  start  that  motion  in  the 
first  place,  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  is  universal, 
that : — "  Every  change  must  have  had  a  cause  to 
produce  it." 

It  is  not  therefore  the  sum  total  of  material  and 
energy  existing  in  the  universe,  whose  existence 
compels  us  to  believe  there  must  have  been  a 
cause  to  produce  it,  but  it  is  because  there  are 
changes  going  on  in  the  universe  and  we  are 
compelled  to  believe  that  each  one  of  those 
changes  must  have  had  a  cause  to  produce  it,  and 


38  GOD   AND   NATURE 

that  is  the  basis  upon   which   the  argument  for  a 
first  cause  is  built. 

NECESSITY  OF  SOME  EXTRA-PHYSICAL  AGENCY'S 
WORK 

But  the  conclusion  is  not  so  easy  to  reach  as  it 
might  at  first  seem.  There  are  millions  of  changes 
going  on  constantly  in  the  universe,  but  we  find 
that  one  change  always  produces  another  change. 
If  we  ask  what  was  the  cause  of  any  particular 
change  the  answer  is  that  it  was  some  other  change 
that  occurred  before  it.  It  would  be  logically  possi- 
ble, therefore,  to  suppose  that  these  changes  just  go 
on  producing  each  other  in  a  circle,  A  producing  B, 
and  B  producing  C,  and  C  producing  D,  and  so  on 
through  a  long  series,  the  last  change  of  the  series 
producing  the  change  A  again  and  A  producing  B, 
and  so  on  around  and  around  the  circle  forever  with- 
out any  end  or  any  beginning.  This  is  indeed  the 
theory  of  some  philosophers,  and  they  claim  that 
all  things  go  through  vast  cycles,  and  some  time, 
after  millions  of  ages  perhaps,  they  will  all  come 
back  again  to  exactly  the  state  in  which  they  are 
now. 

The  fatal  objection  to  this  theory  is  that  all  the 
observed  facts  point  the  other  way.  There  is  a 
progress  or  tendency  in  all  changes,  and  the  direc- 
tion of  them  all  is  the  same  way.  The  longer  the 
process  goes  on  the  farther  it  gets  from  the  condi- 
tion that  produced  the  first  change.  There  is  never 
any  known  tendency  to  reverse  the  order  and  pro- 


FIRST  CAUSE  39 

duce  a  condition  higher  up  the  series ;  each  change 
always  produces  a  condition  lower  and  lower  down 
the  series,  with  never  any  tendency  to  ascend.  Even 
if  there  are  some  cases  that  at  first  seem  like  ascend- 
ing it  is  always  found  that  the  ascent  is  more  than 
balanced  by  an  accompanying  descent. 

We  might  illustrate  the  case  typically  by  saying 
that  it  is  the  tendency  of  things  to  fall  always  down 
and  never  up.  Though  there  are  cases  where  a  body 
seems  to  fall  up  instead  of  down,  as  a  balloon  in  the 
air  or  a  cork  in  the  water,  yet  it  is  only  apparent,  for 
a  heavier  object  always  falls  downward  to  raise  the 
lighter  object  upward.  Thus  for  instance  there  is  a 
tendency  for  oxygen  and  carbon  to  unite  and  form 
carbonic  acid,  and  for  oxygen  and  calcium  to 
unite  and  form  lime,  and  again  for  the  acid  and  the 
lime  to  unite  and  form  carbonate  of  lime  and  so  the 
process  goes  on.  Now  it  is  indeed  possible  to  sepa- 
rate any  or  all  of  these  combinations,  reversing  the 
process  apparently  and  returning  them  to  their 
previous  condition,  but  it  can  only  be  done  by  means 
of  making  some  other  combination  harder  to  dissoci- 
ate, or  by  using  up  an  amount  of  heat  or  some  other 
energy  greater  than  the  amount  that  was  produced 
in  making  the  original  combinations.  There  has 
been  therefore  a  net  descent,  though  in  certain  parts 
there  has  been  an  ascent.  The  ascent  is  always 
more  than  overbalanced  by  the  descent. 

This  is  the  law  that  holds  good  of  all  changes  both 
in  the  domain  of  physics  and  chemistry,  indeed  of 
all   mechanical   changes.     There   may  be   changes 


40  GOD  AND  NATURE 

where  there  is  an  exact  balance  and  neither  ascent 
nor  descent,  as  for  instance  the  change  of  direction  of 
a  planet  revolving  in  a  vacuum  through  the  inter- 
action of  two  forces  exactly  balancing  each  other. 
But  that  is  simply  a  case  where  the  descent  or  loss 
is  reduced  to  zero,  but  there  is  no  gain  or  ascent, 
and  there  is  no  known  case  where  there  is  any  net 
ascent  to  counterbalance  the  millions  of  cases  con- 
stantly occurring  with  a  constant  net  result  of  descent. 
To  state  the  case  more  concretely  : — There  is  in 
the  universe  everywhere,  so  far  as  we  can  find  out, 
a  constant  tendency  for  heat  to  radiate  away,  for 
bodies  or  atoms  to  gravitate  closer  together,  for 
atoms  to  coalesce  into  liquids  and  solids,  to  combine 
into  combinations  and  these  into  other  combinations, 
always  the  net  result  of  the  reaction  being  something 
harder  to  resolve  and  return  to  an  uncombined  con- 
dition. It  is  true  that  in  one  single  case,  that  of 
radium,  most  observers  have  for  some  reason  chosen 
to  conjecturally  call  the  process  that  spontaneously 
takes  place  by  the  name  "  Disintegration,"  but  it  too, 
like  all  of  what  are  called  "  chemical  combinations," 
is  always  attended  with  the  giving  off  of  heat  or 
energy  and  no  one  conceives  that  the  process,  what- 
ever it  is,  could  be  reversed  without  the  expenditure 
of  a  greater  amount  of  energy  than  was  produced  by 
it.  So  whatever  name  is  given  it,  it  is  no  exception 
to  the  universal  rule  that  all  known  changes  have 
only  the  one  direction,  that  is,  into  states  from  which 
it  is  always  harder  and  harder  to  cause  a  return  to 
the  initial  condition. 


FIRST  CAUSE  4! 

In  other  words,  as  it  has  often  been  expressed : — 
"  The  universe  is  like  a  great  clock  that  is  con- 
stantly running  down."  All  its  changes  are  pre- 
cisely like  the  motions  of  a  clock  whose  spring 
unwinds  to  cause  those  motions.  The  spring  is 
constantly  unwinding,  and  there  must  come  a  time, 
if  nothing  intervenes,  when  it  will  be  entirely  run 
down  and  the  motion  cease.  In  the  case  of  a  clock 
it  would  not  be  at  all  difficult  to  compute  from  the 
condition  of  the  spring,  just  how  long  the  clock  will 
run  and  just  when  it  will  stop.  In  the  same  way,  if 
one  had  perfect  knowledge  of  all  the  facts  in  the 
universe  it  would  be  possible  to  compute  just  how 
long  it  would  require  for  the  series  of  changes  that 
are  now  going  on  to  run  out  and  the  whole  universe 
to  be  reduced  to  the  condition  in  which  it  could 
spontaneously  produce  no  more  changes.  It  doubt- 
less would  be  billions  of  billions  of  years,  and  be- 
yond the  power  of  mind  to  conceive  so  long  a 
stretch  of  time,  but  it  is  certainly  and  irresistibly 
tending  towards  that  condition  and  that  condition 
must  certainly  and  inevitably  be  reached  some  time, 
— that  is,  provided  there  is  no  other  agency  beside 
the  mechanical  energies  and  laws  to  intervene  and 
prevent  it,  for  those  mechanical  energies  and  laws 
by  themselves  must  irresistibly  and  inevitably  lead 
to  that  condition.  That  is  the  direction  in  which 
they  are  constantly  and  irresistibly  tending  and 
there  has  never  been  discovered  in  them  any  possi- 
bility of  any  other  tendency.  A  process  that  thus 
tends  towards  an  end  cannot  be  an  eternal  process, 


42  GOD   AND   NATURE 

for  anything"  that  began  an  infinite  time  ago  and 
was  capable  of  being  finished  must  have  been 
finished  an  infinite  while  ago. 

On  the  other  hand,  again,  by  examining  the  clock 
it  would  be  quite  possible  to  compute  the  exact 
moment  at  which  it  was  wound  up  for  its  present 
movements,  or  at  least  to  prove  that  it  is  not  longer 
than  a  certain  given  length  of  time  since  it  was 
wound  up.  In  the  same  way,  if  we  knew  perfectly 
all  the  facts  and  forces  in  the  universe  it  would  be 
possible  to  compute  the  exact  time  when  all  this 
vast  series  of  progressive  changes  must  have  first 
begun,  or  at  least  to  prove  that  it  has  not  continued 
longer  than  a  given  length  of  time  without  the 
influence  of  other  agencies  than  the  mechanical 
energies  and  laws  of  nature, — that  is  to  say,  "  It  has 
not  run  longer  than  a  certain  given  length  of  time 
since  it  was  wound  up." 

These  considerations  establish  one  most  funda- 
mental fact.  There  must  have  been,  at  some  time, 
operative  in  the  universe  some  great  agency  differ- 
ent from  the  mechanical  energies  and  laws  which  we 
know  and  whose  ways  of  working  have  been  so 
fully  established.  If  the  universe  had  always  existed 
with  nothing  else  operative  in  it  but  these  mechan- 
ical energies  and  laws  it  would  long  ago  have  been 
run  down  and  have  finished  its  course,  for,  however 
immensely  long  the  time  required,  if  it  had  begun 
absolutely  an  infinitely  long  while  ago  it  would  long 
ago  have  been  finished,  no  matter  how  long  it 
extended.     We  have  therefore  demonstrated  abso- 


FIRST  CAUSE  43 

lutely  the  certainty  that  some  other  agency  must  at 
some  time  have  intervened  and  acted,  and  indeed 
theoretically  proved  the  possibility  of  computing  the 
period  of  time  within  which  that  intervention  must 
have  occurred. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  travelling  familiar  ground, 
and  thus  far  even  the  atheistic  materialist  would 
cheerfully  go  with  us.  Right  here,  however,  we 
have  need  to  observe  the  caution  made  some  time 
ago,  first,  not  to  suppose  we  have  proved  more  than 
we  have,  and  second,  not  to  think,  because  we 
have  not  proved  the  existence  of  such  a  God  as  we 
have  in  mind  and  worship,  therefore  the  argument 
has  failed.  We  have  at  least  established  one  very 
fundamental  fact.  We  have  made  one  advance  and 
arrived  on  solid  ground  that  can  be  made  the  un- 
questioned basis  for  further  explorations.  We  have 
not  only  proved  a  probability,  but  we  have  demon- 
strated the  fact,  as  far  as  science  is  able  to  demon- 
strate any  fact,  that  there  must  have  been  operative 
soyne  time  in  the  universe  SOME  OTHER  AGENCY  than 
any  of  the  mechanical  energies  and  laws  that  we  now 
know.  This  fact  is  demonstrable  and  is  generally 
admitted. 

NATURE  OF  THAT  EXTRA-PHYSICAL  AGENCY 
As  I  have  just  said,  all  the  great  thinkers  of 
modern  times,  under  some  form  of  words  or  defini- 
tion, recognize  the  essential  fact  stated  above,  that 
at  some  time  past,  present  or  continuously,  some 
other    agency   above    and   aside   from   the   known 


44  GOD  AND  NATURE 

mechanical  energies  and  laws  must  have  exercised 
a  supreme  influence  upon  the  phenomena  of  the 
universe.  Herbert  Spencer  chooses  to  call  it  "  The 
Great  Unknown,"  and  some  similar  phraseology  is 
usually  employed  by  most  of  the  agnostic  or 
materialistic  school  of  thinkers.  Here  again  I 
would  call  attention  to  the  observation  made  some 
time  ago  (page  26)  that  if  our  argument  should 
demonstrate  the  existence  of  a  being  with  some  of 
the  attributes  we  usually  associate  with  God  but 
give  no  indication  at  all  of  the  possession  of  other 
attributes  that  we  consider  God  to  possess  there 
would  be  logically  possible  any  of  three  conclusions : 
— (i)  That  a  being  with  those  attributes  exists  but 
as  to  God  there  is  no  evidence  whether  He  does  or 
does  not  exist.  (2)  Such  a  being  exists  and  is 
really  God,  and  we  have  been  mistaken  in  our  idea 
of  God,  or  (3)  That  being  is  really  God  and  has  all 
the  other  attributes  we  usually  ascribe  to  Him,  only 
it  remains  for  other  processes  to  reveal  the  other 
attributes  to  us. 

Of  these  three  alternatives  the  agnostic  school  of 
thinkers  choose  the  first,  "  There  is  no  evidence 
here,"  they  say,  "  that  such  a  being  as  the  Christian 
worships  as  God  exists.  Some  being  other  than  the 
laws  and  energies  of  nature  exists  and  has  at  some 
time  exerted  a  controlling  influence  over  things,  but 
the  attributes  are  so  uncertain  and  undefined  that  we 
are  justified  in  naming  it  '  The  Great  Unknown.'  " 

But  they  overlook  the  fact  that  other  lines  of  argu- 
ment may  determine  some  of  the  other  attributes  of 


FIRST   CAUSE  45 

this  being  here  proved  to  exist  and  may  show  that 
they  are  precisely  the  attributes  of  the  God  who  is 
worshipped.  Nay  more,  we  have  not  yet  exhausted 
the  possibilities  of  this  same  argument  from  cause 
and  effect,  and  it  may  be  that  even  by  it  we  may  be 
able  to  find  out  some  of  the  attributes  of  this  extra- 
mechanical  agency, — the  attributes  which  would  be 
necessary  to  enable  it  to  do  what  our  investigations 
demonstrate  must  have  been  done  by  it, — attributes 
too  that  will  go  far  to  identify  it  with  the  supreme 
being  that  Christians  believe  in  and  worship  as 
God. 

Let  us,  then,  examine  more  closely  the  situation. 
Let  us  examine  more  definitely  just  what  must  have 
been  done  by  this  extra-mechanical  agency,  in  order 
that  the  universe  under  its  known  mechanical  ener- 
gies and  laws  would  be  able  to  begin  a  course  that 
should  attain  at  the  present  point  of  time  precisely 
the  position  and  condition  in  its  great  progress  that 
we  see  at  the  present  time.  Let  us  see  if  we  can 
formulate  or  conceive  any  agency  that  would  be  able 
to  do  what  would  be  sufficient  to  bring  about  just  this 
state  at  this  ti?ne. 

Suppose  that  we  should  be  able  to  conceive  or 
formulate  some  plausible  process  or  act  that  would 
be  competent  to  satisfy  all  the  conditions.  We  may 
suppose  all  the  present  material  and  energy,  and  all 
the  natural  laws  to  have  been  previously  in  exist- 
ence, but  we  should  be  able  to  conceive  some  reason 
why,  though  existent  before,  they  did  not  previously 
begin  the  process,  and  why  just  at  a  certain  par- 


46  GOD   AND   NATURE 

ticular  time  they  did  begin  the  process  which  we 
know  has  been  going  on  for  a  limited  length  of  time 
and  has  brought  all  things  to  this  stage  at  this  time. 
And  suppose  we  should  be  able  to  conceive  or 
formulate  the  nature  of  some  agency  or  being  such 
as  would  constitute  it  able  to  perform  the  necessary 
acts  to  inhibit  for  a  time,  or  to  bring  about  the  start- 
ing of  this  great  process.  In  other  words,  it  is  de- 
monstrable that  something  has  some  time  been  done 
that  the  known  mechanical  energies  and  laws  would 
not  be  able  to  do.  Suppose  we  should  be  able  to 
conceive  a  plausible  way  in  which  it  could  be  done, 
and  the  kind  of  a  being  or  agency  that  could  do  it. 
That  would  not,  indeed,  constitute  a  proof  that  such 
an  agency  actually  did  those  acts,  but  it  would  con- 
stitute a  plausible  hypothesis  worthy  of  considera- 
tion, and  create  some  degree  of  probability  that  it 
was  all  done  in  that  way.  This  probability  would  be 
greater  in  proportion  to  the  inherent  probability  of 
an  agency  of  that  nature  existing. 

Suppose  then  in  addition  we  are  able  to  show  that 
there  is  actually  in  existence  and  known  an  agency 
with  a  nature  and  powers  exactly  suited  to  do  the  very 
kind  of  "something"  that  we  have  seen  would  be 
necessary  to  inhibit  or  to  start  the  universe  process. 
Suppose  we  know  and  see  such  an  agency  doing 
now  in  some  limited  degree,  or  on  a  smaller  scale, 
precisely  the  same  kind  of  an  act  as  our  hypothesis 
above  calls  for.  That  would  raise  our  hypothesis 
up  to  the  rank  of  a  proved  fact,  for  it  would  constitute 
the  same  grade  of  proof  as  is  ordinarily  accepted  as 


FIRST  CAUSE  47 

establishing  a  scientific  fact.  And  the  proof  would 
be  the  more  compelling  if  there  were  no  other  known 
agency  in  the  universe  competent  to  satisfy  the  con- 
ditions, or  indeed  it  were  difficult  to  even  conceive 
or  formulate  clearly  any  other  satisfactory  solution. 
We  might  then  reasonably  say  we  had  fully  proved 
that  the  universe  process  was  started  in  that  way, 
and  that  there  exists  an  agency  of  that  character 
great  enough  to  start  it  in  that  way.  In  other 
words,  we  could  say  that  we  had  demonstrated  some- 
thing as  to  the  character  of  that  other  or  "extra- 
mechanical  "  agency  which  all  scientific  thought  now 
admits  must  have  some  time  been  operative  in  the 
universe.  We  would  have  found  out  something 
about  the  nature  of  what  we  are  pleased  to  call 
the  "  First  Cause."  I  believe  that  we  will  find  that 
such  an  agency  does  exist,  is  well  known  and  does 
just  the  kind  of  act  that  is  called  for  here.  And 
really  it  is  about  the  only  active  extra-mechanical 
agency  of  any  kind  that  we  do  know  of  in  the 
universe. 

Let  us  revert  again  to  the  illustration  of  the  clock. 
Suppose  that  I  should  find  by  examining  the  main- 
spring that  it  would  take  it  just  say  fifteen  hours  to 
run  down  to  its  present  condition  after  being  fully 
wound  up.  Now  that  does  not,  indeed,  necessarily 
prove  that  it  is  just  fifteen  hours  since  that  clock  was 
wound  up.  It  may  have  been  only  partially  wound 
up,  only  one  or  two  hours  ago.  It  may  have  been 
wound  up  twenty  hours  ago  and  stopped  for  five 
hours  and  been  started  again.     Or  it  may  possibly 


48  GOD  AND  NATURE 

have  been  wound  up  a  long  while  ago  and  set  away 
for  a  year  or  ten  years  or  fifty  years.  I  can  tell 
nothing  at  all  about  the  time  when  it  was  wound  up, 
but  I  can  tell  that  some  time  within  the  past  fifteen 
hours  some  agency  outside  of  the  energies  within 
itself  has  been  at  work  upon  it  and  has  either  given 
it  its  power  by  winding  it  up  and  then  started  it,  or 
by  some  way  releasing  and  starting  into  action  the 
powers  already  in  it  has  begun  the  series  of  progress 
that  has  brought  its  wheels  and  hands  to  the  present 
condition  at  just  the  present  time. 

Now  just  precisely  that  is  what  we  must  say  has 
taken  place  in  this  great  clock,  the  universe.  We 
have,  by  hypothesis,  determined  the  limits  of  the 
length  of  time  it  could  have  run  before  coming  to 
the  stage  in  which  it  is  now.  Be  it  a  billion  billion 
years  or  still  a  billion  billion  times  as  many  more  is 
immaterial.  It  could  not  have  been  infinite,  as  is 
demonstrable,  and  the  argument  is  the  same  whether 
it  is  one  year  or  the  longest  period  conceivable. 
Within  a  certain  definite  period  of  past  time  some 
agency  has  started  the  wheels  of  its  progress  into 
action.  It  may  have  at  the  same  time  created  all 
the  energy  that  carried  on  that  progress  or  it  may 
not.  That  is  immaterial.  It  may  have  all  been 
present  but  held  inactive  for  an  indefinite  or  even 
infinite  period  before,  but  at  that  particular  time  that 
agency  started  those  energies  in  the  progressive 
series  of  acts  and  changes  that  have  gone  on  and 
produced  the  results  which  we  see.  That  is  all  we 
can  certainly  say.     More  may  be  true,  but  that  much 


FIRST  CAUSE  49 

certainly  must  be  true.  That  is  the  one  thing  that 
is  demonstrated  to  have  taken  place  whether  more 
has  or  not. 

A  KNOWN  AGENT  WHICH   PRODUCES  THAT 
KIND   OF   RESULTS 

Now  is  there  any  known  agency  in  the  universe 
that  is  known  to  be  able  and  suited  to  do  that,  or 
to  do  things  of  that  essential  nature  ?  There  is  such 
an  agency,  common  and  very  well  known.  Let  us 
examine  just  what  is  the  exact  character  of  the 
actions  and  functions  of  one  of  the  best  known  of 
agencies,  the  agency  that  in  popular  language  is 
called  the  "human  will"  and  which  might  perhaps 
in  exact  scientific  terms  be  properly  defined  as 
"  The  method  of  action  of  the  life,  mind  or  spirit 
upon  mechanical  energies."  Just  what  is  the  nature 
of  that  action  ?  What  does  it  do  ?  and  how  does  it 
do  it  ?  We  may  answer  in  a  word  : — What  it  does  is  to 
control  and  direct  the  activity  of  mechanical  energies. 

Among  all  the  interesting  fields  of  scientific  re- 
search in  the  past  half  a  century,  not  the  least  in 
interest  or  in  the  importance  of  the  results  achieved 
has  been  the  field  of  psychological  research.  During 
the  earlier  part  of  that  period  the  investigations 
were  carried  on  chiefly  along  physical  and  material 
lines  under  the  name  of  physiological  psychology. 
And  it  seemed  to  be  the  aim  or  the  hope  of  many 
of  the  investigators  to  be  able  to  disprove  the  exist- 
ence entirely  of  what  is  commonly  conceived  of  as 
the    soul   or    non-material    mind,   and   explain  all 


50  GOD   AND   NATURE 

phenomena  as  merely  functions  of  matter  and 
material  energy.  That  attempt,  if  attempt  there 
was,  never  was  successful.  In  later  years,  however, 
a  large  and  increasing  school  of  investigators  have 
turned  their  attention  precisely  in  the  other  direction, 
towards  investigating  a  range  of  facts  that  are  very 
evidently  outside  the  range  of  physical  causation, 
and  though  the  work  is  yet  far  from  completed,  and 
results  in  many  cases  far  from  being  definitely  and 
finally  established,  yet  enough  has  already  been 
accomplished  to  put  the  belief  in  the  soul  or  mind 
as  a  definite,  non-material  entity  on  a  firm  scientific 
basis.  There  is  now  a  quite  wide  recognition  among 
scientific  men,  that  the  soul  or  agent  that  manifests 
itself  by  life,  thought,  will,  etc.,  in  living  organisms, 
whatever  its  character,  origin  or  future  destiny,  is  a 
real  existent,  non-material  agent,  different  from  any 
of  the  mechanical  energies,  and  is  an  object  to  be 
studied  as  a  fundamental  controlling  and  directing 
factor  in  the  actions  of  living  organisms.  (See  Ap- 
pendix A.) 

There  was  a  time  when  men  were  disposed  at  this 
point  to  make  a  short  cut  to  their  conclusion,  and 
even  yet  some  are  disposed  to  think  there  is  a 
measure  of  validity  in  that  road.  They  would 
say : — "  By  my  will  I  exert  energy.  My  will  or  soul 
therefore  is  capable  of  creating  energy,  therefore 
it  is  plausible  to  suppose  that  all  the  energy  in  the 
universe  was  originally  the  product  of  some  will, 
namely  the  infinite  will  of  the  infinite  Spirit,  God." 

The  objection  to  this  is  that  science  denies  that 


FIRST  CAUSE  5I 

the  will  or  soul  produces  the  energy  that  it  seems 
to  exert.  It  is  proved  that  all  the  energy  that  is 
exerted  in  any  action  of  the  body  was  already  pres- 
ent in  the  muscles  of  the  body  just  as  the  energy 
that  moves  the  engine  was  already  present  in  the 
coal  and  steam  in  it.  The  will  or  soul  does  not 
create  the  energy  it  seems  to  exert  any  more  than 
the  engineer  creates  the  energy  his  engine  exerts. 

But  while  that  answer  is  true  yet  it  does  not  fully 
cover  the  case.  The  will  or  act  of  the  soul  does 
not  create  that  energy,  but  it  does  do  something. 
It  in  some  way  brings  it  about  that  a  certain  act 
takes  place  just  at  a  certain  time.  Whatever  it  is 
that  the  soul  does,  if  it  had  not  done  it  that  act 
would  not  have  taken  place  at  that  time.  It  was 
entirely  because  it  did  that  something,  that  that  act 
took  place  just  at  that  time  and  not  at  some  previous 
time  or  at  some  later  time.  That  same  soul,  if  it 
had  chosen,  could  just  as  easily  have  caused  that 
that  act  should  have  taken  place  at  an  earlier  time 
or  at  a  later  time.  It  would,  perhaps,  have  been 
the  same  energies  that  produced  it,  whenever  it  was 
produced,  earlier  or  later  or  at  that  time,  but  the 
soul,  by  some  act  that  it  performed,  brought  about 
that  it  did  not  take  place  at  the  earlier  date  when  it 
was  perfectly  possible  according  to  the  mechanical 
energies  for  it  to  take  place,  and  that  it  did  not  wait 
till  the  later  date  at  which  those  same  mechanical 
energies  would  have  been  just  as  competent  to 
produce  it,  but  that  it  should  occur  just  at  a  certain 
definite  time  fixed  by  itself  and  not  determined  by 


52  GOD  AND  NATURE 

the  tendencies  of  the  mechanical  energies  that  pro- 
duced it. 

As  to  just  what  the  soul  does  to  cause  the  act  to 
occur  at  that  time  and  not  at  another  time,  we  can- 
not yet  clearly  say,  but  of  the  fact  there  can  be  no 
question.  Let  us  examine  some  simple  act,  as  the 
throwing  of  a  stone.  The  stone  is  in  the  hand  and 
will  be  thrown  as  soon  as  the  hand  makes  a  certain 
motion.  In  the  arm  are  certain  muscles.  If  those 
muscles  contract  in  a  certain  way  it  will  move  the 
hand  in  the  way  necessary  to  throw  the  stone. 
There  are  certain  elements  stored  up  in  the  cells 
of  those  muscles  which  by  coming  together  would 
cause  those  muscles  to  contract.  There  are  certain 
nerves  connecting  with  those  cells  in  such  a  way 
that  a  certain  kind  of  activity  in  those  nerves  will 
cause  those  elements  in  those  cells  to  come  together 
and  contract  the  muscle.  Those  nerves  are  in  con- 
nection through  long  nerve  cords  with  certain 
centres  in  the  brain.  Whenever  a  certain  kind  of 
activity  takes  place  in  a  certain  cell  or  cells  in  that 
brain  centre  there  is  a  kind  of  activity  in  the  nerve 
cord  which  produces  just  precisely  the  right  kind 
of  activity  in  the  nerve  ends  at  the  muscle  cells  to 
make  the  elements  in  them  unite  and  cause  the 
muscle  to  contract. 

Now  all  these,  as  far  as  we  know,  are  purely  me- 
chanical energies,  just  as  truly  as  that  of  the  steam 
in  the  engine  boiler,  and  they  do  just  what  their  na- 
ture compels  them  to  do  in  just  the  way  their  nature 
compels  them  to  do  it,  and  they  could  not  do  other- 


FIRST  CAUSE  53 

wise  or  could  not  help  doing  what  they  did,  the  con- 
ditions being  what  they  were.  And  each  act  of  one 
energy  made  the  conditions  right  for  the  next  energy 
farther  down  the  line  to  do  what  it  did.  At  the  head 
of  the  series,  therefore,  there  must  have  been  some 
energy  that  was  capable  of  performing  its  activity 
when  the  conditions  were  right,  and  the  conditions 
were  made  right  only  when  the  soul  did  what  it  did, 
— whatever  it  was  we  cannot  yet  say.  In  other 
words  that  energy  was  in  all  ways  capable  of  per- 
forming its  activity,  but  the  soul,  by  some  means, 
brought  it  about  that  it  actually  performed  it  at  this 
instant  and  not  at  some  other  instant,  though  intrin- 
sically it  was  just  as  ready  to  perform  its  activity  at 
that  instant  as  at  this.  The  soul  therefore  determined 
at  what  instant  it  should  perform  its  activity.  That 
is  practically  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  soul  had 
the  power  to  prevent  its  performing  the  activity 
which  it  was  the  essence  of  its  nature  to  perform, 
during  a  certain  interval  of  time,  and  to  only  perform 
it  at  the  special  time  it  selected.  For  we  are  sup- 
posing that  the  act  itself  was  the  act  of  that  energy 
and  not  of  the  soul,  and  if  it  was  the  act  of  that  en- 
ergy, which  it  was  its  essential  nature  to  perform,  it 
must  perform  it  unless  there  is  something  to  restrain 
it.  That  it  did  not  perform  it  during  all  that  interval 
must  have  been  because  it  was  restrained  from  per- 
forming it.  And  that  it  was  the  soul  that  was  re- 
straining it  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  only  change 
that  took  place  and  by  means  of  which  it  was  ena- 
bled to  perform  its  essential  activity  was  something 


54  GOD  AND  NATURE 

that  that  soul  did.  For  by  hypothesis  this  is  the  very 
first  activity  in  the  chain  of  activities.  The  only  al- 
ternatives are  that  the  soul  created  or  caused  to  act 
an  amount  of  energy  that  became  the  first  member 
of  the  series, — which  would  suit  our  argument  equally 
well, — or  that  the  whole  event  and  the  time  of  its  oc- 
currence were  mechanically  determined  and  the  soul 
had  no  determinative  influence  over  it  at  all.  This 
last  supposition  would  destroy  all  possibility  of  voli- 
tion or  real  acts  of  the  will  at  all.  I  would  have  no 
moral  responsibility  for  my  acts  at  all,  for  I  could  not 
prevent  them  or  influence  them  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree any  more  than  I  could  the  wind  blowing  or  the 
stars  revolving  in  their  orbits.  I  as  a  willing,  re- 
sponsible being  could  have  no  possible  control  or  in- 
fluence upon  the  course  of  my  life  or  conduct  or  that 
of  any  other  persons.  And  if  that  were  true  what 
would  be  the  use  of  arguing  this  or  any  other  ques- 
tion? Happily  that  philosophy  has  now  few  advo- 
cates. 

What  have  we  found,  then,  to  be  one  of  the  proved 
facts  of  science  ?  We  have  found  that  in  our  living 
bodies  there  exists  a  non-material  agency  of  some 
kind, — which,  as  far  as  we  can  find  out,  is  identical 
with  the  agency  that  thinks,  feels  and  remembers, 
and  which  is  popularly  called  soul,  or  mind.  We 
have  found  that  this  agency  has  power  to  so  control 
or  affect  mechanical  energies  that  they  perform  the 
essential  act  which  it  is  their  nature  to  perform  only 
at  the  time  when  this  agency  or  soul  selects  for  them 
to  perform  it  and  releases  them  to  perform  it. 


FIRST   CAUSE  55 

That  is  the  fundamental  fact,  and  it  is  a  fact  of 
enormous  significance.  It  is  a  new  something  done 
in  the  world,  which  the  mechanical  energies  are  en- 
tirely unable  to  do.  It  makes  no  difference  how  in- 
finitesimally  small  in  each  case  that  act  may  be. 
It  makes  no  difference  how  small  a  quantity  of  en- 
ergy is  thus  caused  to  act  or  held  in  check  and  re- 
leased at  the  desired  moment.  The  quantity  con- 
cerned is  not  a  matter  of  any  significance  at  all  in 
this  argument.  It  is  the  quality  of  the  act  that  is 
significant.  Quantity  is  entirely  a  relative  matter  in 
any  case.  If  an  agency  of  the  size  that  exists  in  my 
body  could  thus  control  one  unit  of  energy  an  agency 
twice  as  large  could  control  twice  as  much,  an  agency 
a  million  times  as  large  could  control  a  million  times 
as  much,  and  an  agency  of  the  same  kind  sufificiently 
large  could  in  the  same  way  control  all  the  energy 
in  existence  in  the  universe.  This  is  just  the  act  that 
must  have  been  done  to  account  for  the  beginning  of 
all  the  great  universe  process. 

VALIDITY  OF  THIS  CONCLUSION 

It  is  quite  possible  that  to  the  untrained  mind  this 
truth  may  not  at  first  be  entirely  compelling.  The 
train  of  causation  seems  to  be  traced  back  to  some 
infinitesimal  activity  in  a  microscopic  brain  cell,  and 
it  seems  a  great  leap  to  reason  from  such  a  small  ac- 
tivity to  one  so  great  as  to  extend  through  the  mil- 
lions of  miles  of  the  great  universe.  But  really  that 
is  precisely  what  science  does  in  many  other  fields  of 
research,  and  considers  the  results  thus  obtained  as 


56  GOD  AND  NATURE 

perfectly  demonstrated.  For  instance,  in  demon- 
strating the  great  law  of  gravitation  to  extend  to  the 
millions  of  immense  suns  over  the  billions  of  billions 
of  miles  of  the  whole  universe  the  calculations  and 
experiments  were  made  with  objects  of  only  a  few 
ounces'  weight,  falling  only  a  few  inches  or  few  feet 
of  distance,  yet  the  deductions  could  be  perfectly 
made  from  one  to  the  other.  In  work  with  the  spec- 
troscope there  is  used  perhaps  a  little  speck  of  flame 
but  a  small  fraction  of  an  inch  in  size,  but  yet  from 
this  infinitesimal  experiment  absolute  deductions  can 
be  made  as  to  the  vast  disc  of  the  sun,  a  million 
miles  in  diameter  or  the  character  of  vast  nebulae  a 
million  times  greater  still.  Indeed  the  largest  instance 
of  either  a  falling  body  or  of  a  flame  that  we  have 
ever  seen  on  this  earth,  would  be  comparatively  in- 
finitesimal in  comparison  with  these  vast  conclu- 
sions which  science  deduces.  It  is  entirely  the  qual- 
ity of  the  action  or  phenomenon  that  has  any  im- 
portance in  such  an  inquiry.  The  quantity  present 
in  any  given  instance  is  of  no  significance  in  such 
an  inquiry. 

Notice,  then,  what  it  is  that  we  have  demonstrated. 
We  have  shown  above  that  in  the  great  clock  of  the 
universe  the  activities  and  changes  that  are  going 
on  are  a  progressive  series,  and  a  series  that  must 
have  taken  its  start  at  some  definite  time  within 
a  certain  definite  past  period.  The  changes  and 
activities  themselves  are  all  produced  by  various 
mechanical  energies  working  according  to  their 
established   laws,  but   the   fact   that  that  series  of 


FIRST  CAUSE  57 

activities  began  to  operate  just  at  that  time  and  not 
before  or  after,  but  just  at  the  time  to  bring 
them  just  to  their  present  stage  of  advancement  at 
this  time,  is  the  real  question  to  be  solved.  It  is  the 
question  of  energies  which  are  able  to  produce  cer- 
tain results,  and  by  the  essential  laws  of  their  nature 
tending  to  produce  those  results,  yet  only  beginning 
to  produce  those  results  at  a  certain  specific  time. 
That  is  the  phenomenon  we  have  to  account  for  on 
a  large  scale  in  the  great  universe.  But  as  we  have 
seen,  just  that  phenomenon,  on  a  small  scale,  is 
brought  about  in  our  living  body,  every  time  we 
begin  an  act.  A  non-material  agency  in  our 
bodies  which  as  far  as  we  can  find  out  is  identical 
with  the  agency  which  thinks,  feels  and  remembers, 
has  precisely  the  ability  to  produce  that  phenom- 
enon. 

In  other  words,  we  have  found  in  addition  to 
the  7nechanical  energies  existent  in  the  universe, 
another  agency  or  being  also  existent  in  the 
universe  of  such  a  nature  that  an  agency  of  that 
nature  acting  upon  or  in  conjunction  with  the 
mechanical  energies  would  be  able  to  produce  pre- 
cisely the  result  which  we  see  has  been  produced, 
namely,  bring  the  universe  into  precisely  the  state  in 
which  we  find  it  at  the  present  moment.  Whatever 
that  agency  within  us  is  which  has  power  to  control 
energies  and  start  trains  of  activity,  and  which  we 
call  soul  or  spirit,  just  such  an  agency,  if  large 
enough,  would  have  been  able  to  control  all  existing 
energy,  and  start  the  train  of  activity  in  just  the  way 


58  GOD  AND  NATURE 

and  at  just  the  time  to  bring  all  things  to  their  pres- 
ent state  at  just  the  present  time.  That  is  precisely 
one  of  the  characteristic  attributes  of  that  species  of 
entity.  And  moreover  this  alone  of  all  the  agencies 
known  to  exist  would  be  able  to  accomplish  that  re- 
sult. There  is  no  other  agency  known  to  exist  which 
is  suited  to  and  capable  of  doing  it. 

Now  according  to  the  canons  of  scientific  reason- 
ing this  proves  that  this  was  the  agency  which  pro- 
duced that  result.  It  proves  it  just  in  the  same  way 
and  therefore  with  the  same  certainty  as  all  the  other 
great  scientific  facts  are  proved.  Where  an  effect  is 
produced  and  we  know  of  a  cause  or  agency  capable 
of  producing  that  effect,  and  aside  from  that  one 
given  agency  there  is  no  other  known  agency  that 
would  be  able  to  produce  that  effect  the  conclusion 
is  compelling  that  the  given  effect  was  actually  pro- 
duced by  that  agency.  We  know  no  other  way  of 
making  inductions  in  science,  and  that  is  the  com- 
mon way  in  which  our  inductions  are  made  and  our 
beliefs  formed. 

Moreover  in  all  cases  where  we  see  an  effect 
produced  that  is  distant  in  time  or  place  so  that  we 
cannot  examine  and  see  if  a  given  agency  was  actually 
present,  yet  if  such  an  agency  is  known  to  have 
been  really  existent  at  any  time,  in  any  place,  and  in 
any  quantity,  provided  an  agency  of  that  nature 
would  be  able  to  produce  such  an  effect,  and  there 
is  no  other  agency  known  to  have  ever  existed  that 
would  be  able  to  do  it,  that  is  also  always  counted 
as  full  demonstration  that  that  was  the  kind  of  agency 


FIRST  CAUSE  59 

that  produced  it, — that  it  was  produced  by  an  agency 
of  that  character. 

For  instance,  because  animals  to-day  produce 
bones  of  the  same  shape  as  the  fossils  found  em- 
bedded in  the  rocks,  and  there  is  no  other  known 
agency  that  would  be  plausibly  capable  of  produc- 
ing just  those  things,  therefore  we  conclude  unques- 
tionably that  those  fossils  were  produced  by  animals, 
even  though  it  is  evident  that  they  have  been  in 
their  present  state  and  position  for  a  million  years, 
and  we  have  no  other  direct  way  of  knowing  that 
there  were  animals  in  existence  at  that  time.  Be- 
cause the  superheated  gas  which  forms  the  flame  in 
our  lamp  or  stove  produces  light  and  heat,  and  we 
see  the  same  things,  light  and  heat,  emanating  from 
the  surface  of  the  sun,  we  irresistibly  conclude  that 
there  is  superheated  gas  or  other  substance  there 
also,  especially  if  we  know  of  no  other  agency  that 
would  be  able  to  produce  that  result.  And  if  with 
the  utmost  powers  of  our  telescopes  we  discover  that 
light  is  emanating  from  some  point  in  space  millions 
of  millions  of  miles  away,  we  still  make  the  same 
confident  induction,  that  there  is  superheated  gas  or 
other  substance  there.  If  it  comes  from  a  nebula  ex- 
tending over  a  vast  region  a  million  times  larger 
than  our  whole  solar  system  we  still  as  confidently 
conclude  that  it  is  caused  by  superheated  gas. 

STARTING  THE   UNIVERSE   PROCESS 
There  is  one  more  possible  objection  that  might 
perhaps  be  urged  at  this  point,  and  which  it  will  be 


6o  GOD  AND  NATURE 

necessary  to  consider  in  order  that  the  proof  may 
be  seen  to  be  complete.  It  may  be  objected  that  we 
do  not  know  that  this  which  it  is  shown  that  an 
agency  of  the  character  of  our  spirits  is  capable  of 
doing  was  actually  done  at  any  time.  That  hy- 
pothesis proposes  simply  the  starting  of  energies 
already  in  existence  to  doing  the  acts  that  they  had 
an  intrinsic  tendency  to  do,  or  perhaps  restraining 
them  from  doing  it  till  the  chosen  time.  Something 
certainly  was  done  at  some  given  time  within  the 
period  which  we  have  ascertained  is  the  longest 
period  the  great  clock  of  the  universe  could  have 
been  running,  but  suppose  that  something  which  was 
done  was  to  create  all  the  energies  active  and  oper- 
ating from  the  start.  Suppose  what  was  done  was 
to  wind  up  the  clock,  not  merely  to  start  a  clock 
already  wound  up.  Or  even  suppose  it  was  to  make 
the  whole  clock,  spring  and  all,  already  wound  up 
and  going.  In  other  words,  we  might  suppose  (and 
most  of  us  do  suppose)  that  the  universe  was  created 
with  all  its  energies  in  full  operation,  and  they  went 
right  on  operating  according  to  their  essential  in- 
trinsic tendency,  from  the  moment  of  their  original 
creation.  In  that  case  where  would  be  the  proof  of 
the  activity  of  an  agency  similar  to  the  human  soul  ? 
In  answer  to  this  we  must  admit,  of  course,  in  the 
first  place,  that  we  cannot  say  that  the  act  which 
began  this  universe  process  was  not  one  of  actual 
creation,  and  therefore  greatly  transcending  anything 
that  could  be  done  by  an  agency  merely  like  the 
human  soul.     Both  logically  and  theologically,  in- 


FIRST   CAUSE  6l 

deed,  we  would  be  quite  disposed  to  believe  that  it 
was.  But  that  does  not  invalidate  our  argument, 
though  perhaps  it  renders  it  a  little  less  obviously 
conclusive  than  it  would  be  if  we  could  prove  that 
both  matter  and  energy  were  preexistent.  As  sug- 
gested in  Appendix  A  our  task  would  be  very  much 
easier  if  we  were  warranted  in  accepting  the  concep- 
tion as  to  the  basis  of  things  that  is  rather  dogmat- 
ically asserted  by  Professor  Haeckel  and  that  school 
of  monists. 

But  to  those  who  believe  that  all  matter  and  energy 
were  first  created  at  the  instant  the  great  universe 
process  began,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  use  this 
argument,  or  any  other.  If  all  things  were  then  first 
created  there  must  have  been  a  creator.  And  a  be- 
ing great  enough  to  create  all  things  certainly  would 
be  great  enough  to  be  worthy  of  worship,  and  cer- 
tainly could  not  have  been  lacking  in  any  of  the 
powers  possessed  by  any  of  the  creatures  that  re- 
sulted from  his  creation.  An  agency  that  could 
create  energy  certainly  must  be  one  able  to  control, 
stop  or  start  its  activity  as  we  have  proposed  above. 

It  is  only  on  the  theory  that  both  matter  and  en- 
ergy preexisted  before  that  time  that  it  is  necessary 
to  seek  further  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  being  like 
God.  And  since  that  is  the  theory  so  many  physical 
scientists  feel  compelled  to  at  least  provisionally  fa- 
vour, they  are  thereby  compelled  to  seek  an  explana- 
tion how  a  process  and  activity  could  begin  at  a 
given  time  which  had  not  begun  during  all  the 
previous  time  that  matter  and  energy  had  been  in 


62  GOD   AND   NATURE 

existence,  especially  that  process  being  the  one  and 
only  series  of  activities  that  they  were  by  nature  able 
to  go  through,  and  a  series  of  activities  that  they  must 
have  always  from  their  beginning  have  had  an  equal 
tendency  to  begin  and  go  through. 

We  are  bound  to  apply  this  solution  to  the  prob- 
lem if  possible.  Science  is  bound,  in  attacking  any 
problem,  to  first  apply  to  it  every  known  agency  that 
is  adapted  to  contribute  to  a  solution.  All  that  known 
agencies  are  capable  of  effecting  it  is  bound  to  accept 
as  effected  by  them.  Thus,  to  take  one  instance,  in 
the  problem  of  living  activities,  the  materialistic  sci- 
entist is  perfectly  correct  in  claiming  that  we  must 
believe  every  change,  reaction  or  transformation 
going  on  in  the  living  body  is  purely  the  work  of 
physical  energy,  because  it  is  the  nature  of  physical 
energy  to  produce  that  class  of  results,  even  though 
the  great  majority  of  these  specific  results  have  not 
yet  been  produced  experimentally  in  our  laboratories. 
Thus  the  bunglesome  but  tenaciously  held  theory 
that  certain  activities  in  the  tissues  and  organs  are 
the  working  of  a  different  something  called  "  vital 
energy  "  or  life  force,  has  to  be  given  up : — though 
that  does  not  preclude  the  presence  of  a  directive 
and  controlling  agent  transcending  and  acting  upon 
those  physical  energies  which  do  the  work. 

In  the  same  way  we  must  apply  to  the  great  uni- 
verse problem  all  the  kinds  of  agencies  known  in  the 
universe.  We  must  carry  the  process  back  as  far  as 
all  possible  working  of  those  kinds  of  agencies  would 
be  able  to  be  made  applicable.     Even  though  there 


FIRST   CAUSE  63 

may  be  something  more  beyond  and  transcending 
all  of  them,  yet  that  much  we  may  legitimately  do, 
and  indeed  must  do.  We  must  carry  the  process 
back,  not  only  to  the  point  which  must  have  been 
the  initial  starting-point  for  the  process  of  physical 
changes,  but  we  must,  since  we  can,  carry  the  process 
still  back  of  that  point  to  a  point  when  all  these 
physical  energies,  ready  to  be  started  but  not  yet 
started  on  this  great  progress,  were  held  in  control 
by  a  great  agency,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  must 
have  been  the  same  kind  of  an  agency  which  does 
the  same  kind  of  an  act  in  the  small  sphere  of  man's 
activity. 

For  even  if  all  this  energy  was  created  at  that 
time,  we  must  notice  that  though  its  creation  may 
not  have  been  antecedent  to  its  beginning  to  act  by 
any  appreciable  interval  of  time,  yet  logically  it  is 
antecedent  and  distinct.  This  is  especially  evident  if 
energy  is,  as  now  generally  acknowledged,  a  per- 
manently existing  entity.  Moreover  we  know,  from 
the  phenomena  of  voluntary  acts,  that  it  is  an  entity 
whose  very  fundamental  nature  it  is  to  be  capable  of 
being  controlled  or  determined  for  or  against  acting 
at  a  given  time  by  the  kind  of  agent  called  life  or 
soul. 

WHAT  WE   HAVE   ESTABLISHED 

To  recapitulate  then  and  to  state  the  case  more 
concretely :  As  we  examine  the  universe  with  its 
myriad  interacting  energies,  and  its  constant  for- 
ward progress,  we  find  that  it  has  taken  a  certain 


64  GOD   AND   NATURE 

number  of  years  to  go  through  a  certain  extent  of 
that  progress.  For  instance  let  us  suppose  that  a 
hundred  million  years  ago  this  earth  was  still  very 
hot,  and  there  was  little  of  the  present  order  of 
things  we  see  now  upon  it.  But  the  energies  and 
processes  were  in  operation  that  would  eventually 
produce  all  the  things  we  have  in  the  world  now, 
and  it  would  take  just  one  hundred  million  years 
for  those  energies  and  processes  to  so  far  develop 
this  world  as  to  bring  it  to  the  exact  condition  in 
which  it  is  to-day. 

Go  back  a  million  million  years,  and  we  will  sup- 
pose that  at  that  time  the  sun  was  immensely  hotter 
than  it  is  now,  and  this  earth  had  not  yet  been 
thrown  out  from  the  body  of  the  sun.  But  the 
energies  and  processes  were  already  in  operation 
which  would  eventually  throw  out  this  earth,  from 
the  sun,  start  it  revolving  on  its  course,  cool  it  down 
and  fit  it  with  all  the  conditions  necessary  for 
animal  life,  and  moreover  it  would  take  just  one 
million  million  years, — we  are  assuming, — for  those 
energies  and  processes  to  so  far  develop  things  as  to 
bring  them  into  precisely  the  condition  that  exists 
to-day. 

Go  back  still  farther — ten  thousand  million  million 
years — and  we  find  a  still  more  primitive  condition, 
but  it  is  still  assumed  that  the  energies  and 
processes  are  all  already  in  operation  which  will  go 
steadily  on  in  the  way  their  nature  compels  them  to 
act  and  eventually  bring  about  the  condition  of  the 
universe  which  we  have  to-day,  and   the  nature  of 


FIRST   CAUSE  65 

those  energies  and  processes  is  sucii  that  it 
must  take  just  ten  thousand  million  million  years 
to  develop  the  universe  from  the  state  in  which 
it  was  then  to  the  exact  state  in  which  it  is  to- 
day. 

But,  as  we  have  already  shown,  this  line  of 
progress  cannot  have  been  going  on  an  infinite 
length  of  time.  Doubtless  it  is  a  very  long  time,  but 
it  is  demonstrable  that  it  is  but  a  finite  length  of 
time.  Suppose  we  assume  for  the  sake  of  the 
argument  that  it  is  a  billion  billion  billion  years. 
That  is  the  length  of  time  it  must  take  for  all  the 
energies  and  processes  in  the  universe  to  develop 
this  universe  from  its  most  primitive  possible  condi- 
tion to  the  exact  condition  in  which  it  is  to-day. 
(Notice  that  we  have  before  shown  that  there  is  a 
constant  progress,  and  not  a  cycle,  so  there  must 
have  been  some  most  primitive  possible  condition.) 
What  we  know,  then,  is  that  through  all  that  billion 
billion  billion  years  these  energies  and  processes 
have  all  been  steadily  acting  in  the  way  it  is  their 
nature  to  act.  But  before  the  beginning  of  that 
period  they  were  not  so  acting,  for  had  they  been 
acting  earlier  they  would  have  brought  the  universe 
to  its  present  condition  earlier  than  now,  for  accord- 
ing to  their  nature  they  must  develop  the  universe 
from  its  most  primitive  possible  condition  to  its 
present  state  in  precisely  that  length  of  time. 

Why  did  not  this  process  begin  earlier?  Why 
did  not  these  energies  and  processes  begin  to  act 
before  that  time  ?    It  is  precisely  the  same  question 


66  GOD   AND   NATURE 

we  have  to  ask  about  the  energies  in  the  brain  cell 
and  the  processes  that  accompany  their  action.  If 
those  energies  in  the  brain  cell,  nerves  and  muscle 
had  begun  to  act  a  minute  or  an  hour  earlier  the 
stone  would  have  been  thrown  just  that  much 
earlier.  They  were  all  present  and  ready  before. 
Why  did  they  not  begin  before?  Just  so  if  all 
these  universe  energies  and  processes  had  begun  to 
act  a  million  years  earlier  the  universe  would  have 
come  to  its  present  state  a  million  years  ago  instead 
of  now.  In  both  cases  it  was  mechanical  energies 
and  processes  that  produced  all  the  results,  both  in 
the  immense  universe  and  in  the  small  human 
nerves  and  muscles.  But  the  question  is  :  Why  did 
they  begin  to  act  just  at  that  time,  and  not  before  or 
after  that  time  ?  In  one  case  we  know  that  it  was 
because  an  agency  commonly  called  spirit  or  soul 
had,  some  way,  such  power  to  control  and  direct 
them  that  it  could  determine  the  time  when  they 
should  act. 

The  inference  is  perfectly  fair  and  legitimate  that 
in  the  other  case  also  where  an  act  of  the  same 
nature  only  on  an  immensely  larger  scale  was  done, 
it  was  an  agency  of  the  same  kind  that  did  it.  It 
was  an  agency  of  the  same  kind  as  our  soul  or  spirit, 
only  on  an  immensely  larger  scale,  which  deter- 
mined all  these  universe  energies  and  processes  to 
begin  just  at  that  time  when  they  did  begin.  No 
other  known  agency  can  do  things  of  that  nature, 
and  this  kind  of  an  agency  is  doing  things  of 
exactly  that  same  nature  all  the  time,  so  the  infer- 


FIRST  CAUSE  67 

ence  seems  conclusive  that  it  was  an  agency  of  that 
character  which  did  it. 

ALL  SCIENTIFIC   CERTAINTY   ONLY   RELATIVE 

If  some  should  still  hesitate  to  accept  this  proof 
and  claim  that  the  case  was  not  fully  demonstrated, 
while  this  theory  would  account  for  the  beginning  of 
the  process,  yet  possibly  there  might  be  some  other 
different  agency  that  we  do  not  know  of  that  would 
also  be  able  to  account  for  it,  so  the  case  is  not 
proved,  we  must  remind  such  that  all  scientific  proof 
is  only  relative,  and  we  have  not  absolute  demon- 
stration for  any  single  fact  of  scientific  knowledge. 
There  is  no  known  phenomenon  but  it  is  possible  to 
conceive  that  it  might  be  produced  by  some  kind  of 
unknown  agency  in  some  way  differently  from  the 
way  we  feel  positively  sure  it  is  produced.  It  would 
not  be  impossible  to  conceive  of  some  other  account- 
ing for  the  fossil  bones  in  the  rock  strata  other  than 
the  accepted  one, — very  improbable  but  not  impos- 
sible. It  is  not  impossible  to  conceive  that  gravita- 
tion may  not  extend  to  the  heavenly  bodies  after  all, 
but  their  motions  may  be  governed  by  some  other 
agency  yet  entirely  unknown.  It  is  not  impossible 
to  conceive  that  all  sight  and  perception,  all  the 
external  world  is  merely  a  subjective  delusion  of  the 
mind  ;  indeed  some  men  imagine  that  they  can  con- 
ceive that  even  the  thinking  ego  itself  is  a  delusion 
and  does  not  exist. 

But  we  do  accept  all  these  facts  as  finally  settled 
merely  because  their  proof  is  of  a  certain  kind  or 


68  GOD   AND   NATURE 

up  to  a  certain  standard.  For  instance,  suppose  an 
analytical  chemist  is  given  a  certain  compound  to 
determine  its  constituents.  He  suspects  the  pres- 
ence of  some  element  there  though  he  is  unable  to 
isolate  it.  But  in  his  manipulation  some  reaction 
or  appearance  is  observed  which  he  knows  that 
element  is  able  to  produce  and  which  there  is  no 
other  agent  known  to  science  that  has  ever  been 
known  to  produce.  He  would  decide  at  once  that 
that  element  was  present  in  the  compound,  and  no 
one  would  ever  think  of  questioning  the  correctness 
of  his  decision.  Of  course  there  might  be  some 
other  kind  of  element  hitherto  entirely  unknown 
that  was  also  able  to  produce  that  same  phenomenon 
and  did  produce  it  there.  That  alternative  is  not 
impossible.  But  for  all  that  his  decision  would  be 
universally  accepted  and  the  proof  declared  sufficient. 

Take  another  case.  A  doctor  is  called  to  diagnose 
a  case  of  sickness.  There  are  certain  pains,  weak- 
ness and  other  disorders.  What  is  the  cause?  He 
knows  that  a  disease  with  exactly  those  symptoms  is 
prevalent  there.  He  examines  a  drop  of  the  blood 
or  some  other  secretion  and  finds  there  the  microbe 
of  that  disease  whose  symptoms  are  precisely  what 
have  been  noted  in  the  case.  He  would  not  have 
the  slightest  hesitancy  in  deciding  that  the  person 
was  suffering  from  that  disease,  produced  by  that 
cause. 

Here,  then,  are  two  canons  of  sufficient  certainty 
that  are  universally  accepted.  If  a  result  is  observed 
which  a  certain  agent  would  be  able  to  produce  and 


FIRST   CAUSE  69 

there  is  no  other  known  agent  that  would  be  able  to 
produce  it,  and  second,  if  we  know  of  the  existence 
and  probable  presence  of  an  agent  whose  specific 
nature  is  to  produce  that  given  result.  The  proof 
we  have  for  our  decision  corresponds  exactly  to  the 
first  and  approximately  to  the  second  of  these  canons. 
In  the  first  place  no  other  known  agent  in  the  uni- 
verse is  able  to  control  and  direct  the  coming  into 
activity  of  physical  energy;  but  just  one  kind  of 
agent,  which  we  see  in  the  human  soul,  is  so  able. 
In  the  second  place,  when  the  problem  of  accounting 
for  the  beginning  of  the  universe  progress  is  pre- 
sented to  us  we  find  existent  in  the  universe  one 
kind  of  agent  whose  activity  would  be  suited  to 
furnish  a  complete  solution.  And,  moreover,  from 
the  teleological  and  other  forms  of  argument  there 
is  much  collateral  evidence  of  the  presence  and  ac- 
tivity of  such  an  agent  in  the  very  case  in  question. 
We  are  warranted,  therefore,  in  claiming  that  this 
proof  is  quite  up  to  the  standard  which  is  accepted 
for  all  scientific  certainty. 

We  have  therefore  accomplished  the  second  step 
in  this  argument  from  cause  and  effect.  We  have 
demonstrated,  first,  that  some  great  agency  other 
than  the  known  mechanical  energies  and  laws  must 
have  operated,  at  some  definite  time  in  the  past,  to 
start  the  great  series  of  progressive  changes  that  is 
now  going  on,  and  second,  that  that  agency  which 
did  this  was  an  agency  of  the  same  character  as  the 
soul  which  is  present  in  our  bodies  and  initiates 
series  of  progressive  activities  there.    We  have  dem- 


70  GOD   AND   NATURE 

onstrated  the  existence  of  some  great  being,  and  we 
have  demonstrated  something  as  to  the  character  of 
that  being.  This  is  perhaps  as  far  as  this  argument 
from  cause  and  effect  can  go. 

FURTHER   INFERENCES 

But  notice  two  things.  First  it  opens  the  way  for 
the  other  arguments  to  demonstrate  what  are  some 
of  his  other  attributes  in  a  way  that  could  not  be  so 
conclusively  done  if  we  had  not  thus  first  proved  the 
existence  of  this  great  being  whose  agency  brought 
all  things  in  nature  about,  and  whose  character  can 
therefore  be  legitimately  inferred  from  the  character 
of  the  results  he  has  produced  in  nature. 

In  the  second  place  notice  what  an  exceedingly 
long  way  we  have  already  been  brought  by  this 
argument  alone  towards  determining  the  character 
and  attributes  of  that  being,  or  agency.  We  have 
identified  it,  defined  it  at  least  on  one  side,  and  have 
found,  so  to  speak,  other  individuals  of  the  same 
species  or  the  same  family  or  genus,  that  we  can 
fully  and  conveniently  study.  As  we  have  remarked, 
attributes  are  not  found  single  but  certain  combina- 
tions of  attributes  are  ordinarily  found  associated 
together,  so  that  if  we  find  that  one  of  these  attri- 
butes was  present  in  any  certain  individual  we  are 
practically  certain  that  the  other  attributes  always 
found  associated  with  it  in  all  other  known  instances 
were  associated  with  it  and  present  in  that  case  also. 

Now  it  is  true  that  we  do  not  know  just  exactly 
how,  in  our  bodies,  those  trains  of  activity  that  we 


FIRST  CAUSE  71 

call  "  voluntary  motions  "  are  caused.  What  we  do 
know  is,  first,  that  they  are  caused  ;  second,  that  they 
are  caused  in  conformity  with  certain  processes  which 
we  call  thought  and  desire.  And  in  the  third  place 
we  may  add  that  there  is  a  whole  range  of  extra- 
mechanical  phenomena  discovered  in  connection 
with  the  activities  of  our  lives,  which  are  all  so 
associated,  connected  and  unified  that  we  feel  irre- 
sistibly compelled  to  consider  the  agency  that  pro- 
duces all  of  them  as  so  unified  as  to  be  properly  con- 
sidered one  agent  or  one  individual,  and  to  identify 
it  with  that  agency  that  emerges  to  consciousness 
in  our  perceptions  and  thoughts,  and  which  we  in 
popular  language  call  our  mind  or  soul. 

If,  therefore,  we  have  found  in  this  great  being  of 
whom  we  have  been  speaking  (and  whom,  for  con- 
venience hereafter  we  may  call  the  "  First  Cause  ") 
any  one  of  the  attributes  that  are  the  distinctive  and 
the  essential  attributes  of  this  agency  in  ourselves 
which  we  call  mind,  etc.,  there  would  be  very  legiti- 
mate reason  for  claiming  that  all  the  other  essential 
attributes  were  present  also,  and  that  this  great 
"First  Cause"  had  all  the  powers,  faculties,  and  es- 
sential attributes  that  we,  living  men,  have.  In  spite 
of  the  stigma  which  at  one  time  certain  persons  were 
disposed  to  place  upon  the  term  "anthropomor- 
phism," it  is  a  fact  that  the  highest  kind  of  existence 
we  have  any  experience  or  direct  knowledge  of  any- 
where in  the  universe  is  that  which  is  found  in  the 
person  of  a  man.  Multiply  that  personality  with  all 
its  powers  and  attributes  to  the  dimensions  of  infinity, 


72  GOD  AND  NATURE 

and  we  have  the  highest  conception  of  a  being  that 
it  is  possible  for  us  to  make.  At  any  rate  if  we  take 
all  that  is  highest  and  best  in  ourselves,  and  think  of 
a  being  possessing  all  that  in  an  infinite  degree,  we 
are  thinking  of  a  being  so  nearly  identical  with  the 
character  of  the  being  which  the  Christians  worship 
as  God  that  there  need  be  no  question  between 
them. 

By  this  one  single  argument,  therefore,  the  argu- 
ment from  "  cause  and  effect,"  we  have  demonstrated 
the  existence  of  an  extra-mechanical  being  whom  we 
may  call  the  "First  Cause,"  and  we  have  shown  that 
it  certainly  has  some  of  the  most  important  and  fun- 
damental of  the  powers  of  man's  spirit,  and  therefore 
probably  has  them  all, — that  it  has  all  that  would  be 
in  a  man  of  infinite  proportions,  and  therefore  proba- 
bly has  all  that  is  comprised  in  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  God. 

ULTIMATE  FIRST  CAUSE 

While  we  use  the  term  "  First  Cause"  here,  it  is 
merely  for  convenience,  and  because  that  is  a  term 
commonly  used  in  this  connection.  It  must  be  fully 
admitted  that  we  have  not  demonstrated  that  this 
agency  is  really  in  the  absolute  meaning  of  the  term 
a  first  cause, — absolutely  eternal, — from  the  begin- 
ning,— and  the  cause  of  all  things.  We  have  proved 
nothing  whatever  with  regard  to  that.  Science  can 
give  no  evidence  whatever  on  that  question. 

Indeed  we  can  go  no  further  back  than  the  mo- 
ment immediately  before  the  point  of  time  at  which 


FIRST  CAUSE  73 

all  this  universe  process  started.  We  can  only  de- 
clare that  at  that  moment  this  great  extra-physical 
agent  existed,  and  started  the  process,  and  that  it 
possessed  the  attributes  and  nature  that  we  have 
seen.  We  have  found  no  more  proof  that  it  is 
eternal  than  that  matter  and  force  are  eternal.  Or 
again,  nothing  to  prove  that  there  may  not  have 
been  some  still  earlier  agent  that  was  the  source  of 
all  three. 

But  the  significant  fact  is  that  we  have  proved  the 
existence  at  that  time  of  this  agent,  that  is  to  say,  of 
an  agent  similar  to  the  human  spirit,  though  im- 
mensely greater.  In  other  words  science  has  demon- 
strated the  existence  of  a  being  as  great  and  vir- 
tually of  the  same  nature  as  the  God  the  Bible 
teaches,  and  that  is  enough  for  all  practical  purposes. 
As  to  the  abstract  philosophical  question  of  the  ab- 
solute beginning  of  all  things,  or  whether  there  may 
not  be  some  other  still  more  primary  "  First  Cause  " 
that  was  the  producing  cause  of  not  only  matter  and 
force  but  also  of  this  great  spiritual  being  that  has 
informed  and  controlled  it  all ;  some  being  so  much 
greater  than  our  highest  conception  of  the  enormous 
powers  of  the  supreme  being  that  all  those  powers 
would  be  as  nothing  to  the  infinite  greatness  and 
diversity  of  his  attributes,  science  has  nothing  to  say  ; 
and  we  may  add  that  religion  has  no  need  for  an 
answer. 

We  may  say,  however,  with  regard  to  this  great  ex- 
tra-physical agent  which  we  have  demonstrated  simi- 
lar to  man's  spirit,  that  we  can  conceive  no  intrinsic 


74  GOD   AND   NATURE 

reason  why  it  might  not  have  existed  from  the  very 
beginning,  and  if  it  has  not,  some  other  agent  with 
all  those  attributes  has,  for  it  could  not  have  been 
produced  by  a  cause  less  than  itself,  and  we  could 
equally  well  identify  that  agent  with  the  Chris- 
tian's God.  As  to  that  agent  also  we  could,  as  out- 
lined below,  argue  perfection  in  all  these  attributes 
from  its  infinite  age,  so  that  argument  would  be  just 
as  valid  whether  this  demonstrated  extra-mechanical 
agent  or  a  still  previous  one  were  the  eternally  ex- 
isting first  cause. 

Moreover,  of  all  the  known  agents  in  the  universe 
mind  is  the  only  one  which  is  not  by  its  nature  com- 
pelled to  exert  its  activity  at  a  determined  time,  and 
is  freely  able  to  defer  and  determine  the  time  of  its 
activities.  Mind  therefore  is  the  one  single  known 
agency  not  conditioned  by  time,  and  so  capable  of 
being  conceived  as  an  eternally  existing  agency, 
capable  of  existing  from  eternity  and  yet  of  deter- 
mining the  activities  of  other  agencies  to  begin  at  a 
given  point  of  time. 

THE  FIRST  CAUSE  A  FULLY  DEVELOPED 
INTELLIGENCE 

There  is  one  more  deduction,  or  one  more  step  in 
the  argument,  which  has  already  been  more  or  less 
anticipated.  There  is  a  theory  as  to  the  existence  of 
God,  or  as  to  the  extra-mechanical  control  of  the 
universe  activities,  which  recognizes  that  there  is  a 
great  being  or  agency  analogous  to  what  we  call 
spirit   or  which  we  recognize   as  the  basis  of  life 


FIRST  CAUSE  75 

phenomena  in  living  organisms,  and  which  recog- 
nizes that  this  great  spiritual  agency  is  present  and 
active  as  a  controlling  factor  in  the  universe  on  a 
large  sccile,  but  the  conception  is  that  it  is  working 
blindly,  that  it  is  only  an  unconscious  tendency,  that 
is  to  say,  if  we  make  the  comparison  with  known  liv- 
ing beings,  it  corresponds  to  the  life  force  present  in 
plants  or  something  lower  still,  rather  than  to  the 
free,  self-conscious  spirit  or  mind  of  man.  Their 
idea  is  that  this  spirit  also  is  developing  or  progress- 
ing just  the  same  as  all  other  activities,  and  that  it  is 
the  most  developed  and  highest  sample  of  it  which 
we  see  individualized  and  focalized  as  the  thinking, 
conscious  minds  of  individual  men. 

There  is  indeed  something  fascinating  about  this 
theory,  and  it  derives  a  degree  of  plausibility  from 
the  fact  that  life  as  we  know  it  historically  has  been 
constantly  progressing,  and  has  attained  to  its 
highest  known  development  in  the  mind  of  man. 
At  first  thought  it  does  seem  plausible  to  conclude 
that  since  in  all  the  finite  specimens  we  know  there 
is  this  development  and  constant  rising  to  a  higher 
status,  so  also  in  the  infinite  life  entity  or  spirit  which 
we  posit  as  the  great  "  First  Cause  "  which  started 
and  governs  all  the  universe  progress  there  will  also 
be  this  same  development,  and  it  is  a  legitimate 
question  to  inquire  to  what  stage  it  has  now  at- 
tained, or  to  suppose,  as  this  theory  does,  that  in  the 
main,  as  a  whole,  it  is  yet  in  a  comparatively  low, 
unconscious  stage,  and  has  only  risen  to  the  stage  of 
thought  and  consciousness  in  the  animals  and  man. 


76  GOD  AND  NATURE 

But  a  little  thought  will  show  that  such  a  being 
would  not  at  all  fit  the  conditions  we  have  found  in 
the  universe  problem  and  from  which  we  have  in- 
ferred the  existence  of  a  universal  dominating  spirit. 
That  conception  entirely  mistakes  the  reasoning  by 
which  we  prove  the  existence  of  this  "  First  Cause," 
and  ^prove  his  spiritual  character.  Since  all  these 
known  living  beings,  or  this  phenomenon  of  life  or 
spirit  present  in  the  universe,  is  seen  to  be  progress- 
ing with  a  constant  tendency,  it  too  must  have  had 
a  beginning,  and  cannot  at  all  be  considered  to  have 
been  the  "  First  Cause"  that  accounts  for  the  start- 
ing of  the  universe  process.  Indeed,  as  far  as  we 
can  find  out,  the  presence  of  these  phenomena  of  life 
is  an  exceedingly  recent  thing  in  the  universe.  Not 
only  does  their  beginning  call  for  a  cause,  but  the 
great  universe  process  had  been  going  on  millions 
of  seons  before  they  appeared  at  all.  They  could 
not  possibly  be  that  "  First  Cause." 

Their  only  office  in  this  argument  is  to  show  that 
the  thing  necessary  to  start  the  universe  process  as 
it  must  have  been  started  was  a  possible  thing,  since 
they  exhibit  an  act  of  essentially  the  same  kind,  only 
on  a  smaller  scale.  By  inference,  therefore,  they 
thus  show  what  the  character  of  the  first  cause  was. 
We  do  not  infer  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  first 
cause  from  the  wide  prevalence  of  spirit  or  life 
activity  in  the  universe,  but  we  prove  the  necessity 
of  such  a  first  cause  for  a  universe  of  revolving  fire 
balls  that  never  had  the  phenomenon  of  life  at  all. 
The  only  office  of  our  present  life  phenomena  is  to 


FIRST   CAUSE  77 

furnish  us  with  a  sample  with  which  to  recognize  and 
picture  the  character  of  that  first  cause  and  make  its 
existence  seem  more  probable.  A  single  instance 
of  a  living  man  would  have  been  just  as  sufficient 
for  all  purposes  of  our  argument  as  all  the  vast  ex- 
tent of  life  we  actually  see. 

In  the  next  place  we  may  answer  to  such  a  theory 
that  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  the  first  cause  as  any- 
thing else  than  perfect  and  at  its  highest  possible 
development.  Some  being  with  attributes  corre- 
sponding to  life  or  spirit  was  present  at  the  starting 
of  the  universe  process,  controlling  all  matter  and  en- 
ergies. Necessarily  therefore  a  being  (either  this  one 
or  a  superior  one  having  the  potentiality  of  all  those 
attributes)  must  have  been  eternally  existent,  through 
an  infinite  length  of  time.  Any  process  of  develop- 
ment, however  slow,  in  an  infinite  duration  of  time 
must  have  reached  the  highest  stage  of  which  it  was 
capable.  We  cannot  conceive  that  a  great  universe 
spirit,  that  could  make  in  a  few  million  years  the  vast 
development  from  the  capacities  of  an  amoeba  to 
those  of  a  man,  could  have  lived  through  an  infinite 
interval  before  without  attaining  higher  that  the 
amoeba  stage.  Whatever  the  being  that  was  the 
first  cause  was,  we  must  believe  that  it  was  as  perfect 
and  as  highly  developed  at  that  time  when  it  started 
the  universe  process  as  it  would  be  possible  for  it 
ever  to  become. 


Ill 

COSMOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT 

AS  already  pointed  out,  the  force  of  the  various 
lines  of  argument  for  the  existence  of  God 
is  cumulative,  and  the  force  is  more  apparent 
when  the  argument  from  cause  and  effect  is  taken 
first  and  the  others  later.  By  that  argument,  as  we 
have  seen,  we  establish  the  existence  of  a  great  extra- 
mechanical  agency  which  started  all  the  great  uni- 
verse process,  and  also  prove  something  as  to  its 
character.  Having  that  much  settled  the  evidence 
shown  by  the  other  lines  of  argument,  that  there  are 
order,  design,  etc.,  in  the  universe,  has  much  more 
pertinent  force,  since  we  have  identified  the  agency 
or  being  who  brought  them  about,  so  they  are  now 
known  to  be  legitimate  proofs  of  the  character  and 
attributes  of  that  being,  since  they  are  his  acts. 

After  the  argument  from  cause  and  effect  it  would 
be  most  natural  to  take  up  the  cosmological  argu- 
ment, or  the  indications  inferred  from  the  orderly 
state  of  everything  in  the  universe.  That  there  is 
such  order  is  beyond  question.  Everything  in  the 
world  and  in  the  solar  system  seems  to  follow  orderly 
lines  of  arrangement  and  motion,  and  there  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  the  same  is  true  of  all  the  rest 
of  the  universe.  The  very  possibility  of  science  at 
all  is  dependent  upon  this  orderliness  in  phenomena, 

78 


COSMOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  79 

Now,  as  we  have  said,  this  fact  taken  alone  would 
not  have  conclusive  force.  Even  though  we  might 
refuse  the  suggestion  that  since  they  must  have  some 
order  it  is  just  as  probable  that  they  have  this  order 
as  any  other  order,  there  is  still  left  the  answer  that 
this  order  results  from  the  operation  and  control  of 
natural  laws.  But  now  that  we  have  proved  and 
know  that  there  is  a  great  being  who  started  all  this 
universe  process,  and  that  that  being  exerts  acts 
similar  to  the  voluntary  acts  of  men,  this  act  of  start- 
ing all  the  universe  process  being  one  such  act,  then 
whether  we  call  the  producing  of  this  systematic 
order  in  the  universe  "  Nature,"  or  however  we 
choose  to  define  it,  the  fact  that  it  was  produced 
in  the  act  of  this  great  first  cause  is  an  indication  of 
his  character  and  constitutes  one  more  link  of  re- 
semblance between  him  and  us. 

Moreover,  since  we  know  that  there  is  a  great  be- 
ing who  possesses  what  in  human  phraseology  we 
call  "will"  and  "choosing  power,"  it  would  be  quite 
a  plausible  supposition  that  it  was  he  that  determined 
and  established  those  uniform  ways  of  acting  which 
we  call  "  Natural  Laws  "  rather  than  that  they  were 
independent  and  conditioned  his  actions.  Indeed  to 
many  minds  it  would  seem  imperative  to  conclude, 
if  there  were  such  a  choosing,  willing  being,  that  he 
not  only  determined  the  starting  and  the  character 
of  the  activities,  but  that  the  very  energies  and  the 
material  universe  itself  was  all  the  result  of  his  work. 
While  we  cannot  say  that  this  is  demonstrably  cer- 
tain, yet  it  is  of  the  degree  of  probability  that  in  any 


8o  GOD  AND   NATURE 

Other  sphere  of  scientific  analysis  would  be  accepted 
without  question.  That  is  to  say,  the  law  of  parsi- 
mony would  declare  it  much  more  plausible  to  be- 
lieve that  it  was  one  and  the  same  agency  that  estab- 
lished those  two  phenomena  which  we  call  matter 
and  energy  with  all  their  laws,  and  started  their  pro- 
gressive functioning,  than  to  believe  that  from  all 
eternity  there  existed  these  three,  independent  and 
self-existing  entities,  matter,  energy  and  spirit. 

It  may  be  well  to  note  here  that  the  doctrine  that 
God  created  all  the  material  and  energy  in  the  uni- 
verse out  of  nothing  is  not  necessarily  an  essential  part 
of  the  Christian  belief  about  God.  Most  Christians 
believe  that  He  did  and  so  state  in  their  creeds,  and 
assume  to  infer  it  from  the  words  of  revelation.  But 
the  Bible  does  not  pretend  to  treat  with  merely  ques- 
tions of  metaphysical  philosophy  or  science.  What 
it  states  is  that  the  universe  which  we  know  and  of 
which  we  are  a  part  was  in  the  beginning  constituted 
such  as  it  is  by  God.  It  does  not  pretend  to  state 
more  than  that  God  is  the  author  of  all  that  we  see 
and  know,  for  anything  more  than  that  would  be  en- 
tirely outside  of  its  religious  purpose.  It  is  most 
natural  to  want  to  believe,  and  it  is  by  far  the  easiest 
and  most  satisfactory  philosophical  conception,  that 
He  made  or  constituted  the  universe  entirely  out  of 
nothing,  and  He  Himself  is  the  only  thing  that  ex- 
isted before  the  universe  was  made.  Indeed  it  is 
quite  in  accordance  with  the  best  canons  of  reason- 
ing so  to  believe,  but  after  all  it  is  merely  a  question 
of  philosophy  or  science,  and  not  a  religious  question. 


IV 

TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT 

WHAT  THE  ARGUMENT  IS  INTENDED  TO  PROVE 

FOLLOWING  the  order  laid  down  on  page  30 
the  next  Hne  of  argument  would  be  the 
•'  Teleological  Argument,"  the  inferences 
drawn  from  the  indications  in  nature  that  things  and 
events  have  been  so  collocated  as  to  conduce  to  the 
attaining  of  certain  desirable  ends  or  results.  This 
argument  will  naturally  be  supplementary  to  the 
former  two,  and  as  far  as  it  establishes  anything  will 
establish  as  attributes  of  the  first  cause  a  still  higher 
class  of  attributes  than  are  touched  by  them.  De- 
termining upon  a  desirable  object  and  then  assem- 
bling and  directing  the  means  suitable  to  attain  that 
object,  is  considered  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
and  essential  acts  of  what  we  call  "  intelligence  "  and 
one  of  the  highest  traits  of  the  human  mind.  It  is 
the  province  of  the  arguments  drawn  from  this  field 
to  prove  that  fact  with  regard  to  the  great  first  cause, 
that  is,  to  show  that  he  is  an  intelligent,  planning 
being. 

Here  again,  the  fact  that  we  have  established  the 
existence  of  this  first  cause,  and  so  many  of  his  other 
attributes,  has   most   important    bearing   upon   the 


82  GOD   AND   NATURE 

validity  and  force  of  this  argument.  Suppose,  some 
time  by  the  seashore  we  should  see  marks  in  the 
sand  that  looked  like  the  letters  of  a  word.  They 
might  have  been  produced  by  the  wind  or  the  waves 
and  have  no  meaning  at  all.  But  if  we  definitely 
knew  that  they  had  been  made  by  a  man  the  case 
would  be  different,  and  we  would  then  be  justified 
in  insisting  that  they  were  meant  to  convey  the 
meaning  they  appeared  to  convey.  Just  so,  when 
we  know  that  the  universe  process  was  started  by  a 
great  being  similar  in  some  respects  to  man's  spirit, 
if  we  shall  then  see  in  that  great  process,  which  that 
being  has  started,  phenomena  that  look  like  purpose 
or  the  assembling  of  means  to  produce  a  desired 
end,  we  would  not  be  at  liberty  to  suppose  they 
might  have  just  happened  to  appear  so,  but  with 
more  confidence  may  insist  that  they  do  bear  that 
meaning  and  are  his  acts  of  purpose  and  the  assem- 
bling of  means  to  produce  an  end  which  he  desired. 
Perhaps  the  question  may  be  raised,  "  What  is  a 
desirable  result  ?  "  On  what  grounds  do  we  call  this 
result  desirable  and  another  result  undesirable  or  in- 
different ?  The  answer  is  that  the  term  is  entirely  a 
relative  one.  It  means  a  result  that  corresponds 
with  our  wishes,  or  ideas  of  progress  and  what  is 
noble  and  good.  That  in  using  means  to  produce 
results  the  great  first  cause  always  produced  results 
of  this  description  therefore  proves  that  in  this  re- 
spect also  his  mind  was  similar  to  ours.  The  results 
that  he  is  thus  shown  to  esteem  as  desirable  are  just 
the  results  that  our  highest  thoughts  also  esteem  to 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  83 

be  desirable.  This  is  another  important  link  that 
proves  the  similarity  of  his  nature  to  ours,  or  as  we 
consider  more  fitting  to  say,  of  our  nature  to  his.  It 
is  one  more  indication  that  there  is  such  a  similarity 
that  we  can  confidently  assume  that  all  the  higher 
attributes  in  our  nature  are  also  present  in  the  nature 
of  the  great  "  First  Cause." 

REALITY   OF   EVIDENCE   OF   DESIGN   IN  STRUCTURE 

The  teleological  argument  was  very  forcibly  and 
clearly  stated  by  Dr.  William  Paley  over  a  century 
ago.  His  principal  line  of  proof  was  to  examine  the 
different  organs  of  the  body  of  man  and  animals, 
and  show  how  beautifully  and  perfectly  they  were 
adapted  to  produce  the  best  results  in  the  life  of  the 
animal  or  man.  Such  a  wonderful  adaptation,  he 
argued,  could  not  have  been  accidental,  but  must 
have  been  the  result  of  design  in  the  agency  that 
made  man  and  these  animals.  From  this  he  logically 
deduced  that  there  must  have  therefore  been  an  in- 
telligent creator  as  the  designer  of  all  things. 

With  the  coming  in  of  the  evolution  theory  it  was 
for  some  time  thought  by  many  that  the  argument 
from  design  was  entirely  invalidated.  It  was  thought 
that  the  theory  of  evolution  furnished  a  complete 
explanation  of  all  this  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  the 
animal  life,  naturally  and  spontaneously,  without  the 
necessity  of  any  previous  designing.  And  it  is  cer- 
tainly true  that  Paley's  argument,  just  in  the  terms 
and  in  the  way  he  used  it,  is  no  longer  usable. 

But  there  are  some  things  that  we  must  observe 


84  GOD   AND   NATURE 

with  regard  to  even  his  argument.  First  it  was  per- 
fectly valid  in  claiming  that  all  these  adaptations  of 
means  to  end  do  prove  design.  They  do  prove  that 
there  has  been  the  operation  of  a  being  that  was  able 
first  to  have  a  worthy  desire  or  object  and  then  to 
adapt  means  to  bring  that  object  about.  For  notice 
carefully  that  all  these  instances  of  such  perfect 
adaptation  of  means  to  end  occur  in  the  structure  of 
beings  with  life.  That  is  a  fact  that  is  not  always 
sufficiently  emphasized  in  the  studies  of  organic 
evolution.  Now  one  of  the  attributes  of  life,  in  the 
highest  forms,  namely,  in  man,  is  precisely  this  faculty 
of  having  objects  of  desire  and  adapting  means  to 
secure  the  desired  object.  In  man  this  is  very  evi- 
dent as  a  conscious  act.  As  we  go  down  the  scale 
of  life  we  see  the  conscious  and  deliberate  exercise 
of  such  a  faculty  less  and  less  evident,  but  the  essen- 
tial principle  of  such  an  act  is  present  very  far  down 
certainly.  I  think  we  can  identify  it  as  present  clear 
back  to  the  very  beginning  and  the  very  lowest 
organisms.  There  are  admittedly  exhibited  by  all 
living  organisms,  indeed  by  all  living  protoplasm, 
by  every  being  that  has  life,  certain  actions  and  re- 
actions upon  environment,  that  are  outside  the  range 
of  merely  mechanical  causation. 

It  may  seem  at  first  thought  that  modern  dis- 
coveries contradict  this  claim.  It  has  been  very 
justly  claimed  that  all  the  processes  of  nutrition  and 
growth,  indeed  all  bodily  functions,  are  pure  chem- 
ical or  mechanical  processes ;  that  there  is  no 
legitimate   line  of   separation  between  organic  and 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  85 

inorganic  chemistry.  Of  course  the  number  of  so- 
called  "  organic  substances  "  that  have  thus  far  been 
produced  by  laboratory  methods  is  exceedingly 
small  comparatively,  but  the  fact  that  some  have 
been  produced,  and  the  marked  analogy  between 
many  of  the  life  processes  and  processes  artificially 
produced  in  the  laboratory,  have  convinced  most 
scientists  that  the  two  processes  are  identical.  Not 
only  all  the  actions  of  the  muscles  but  also  all  the 
actions  of  the  various  glands,  of  tissue  making,  or 
cell  building  and  in  fact  practically  all  the  activities 
that  used  to  be  classed  as  vital  activities  are  pure 
chemical  or  mechanical  reactions,  and  could  be 
artificially  produced  in  the  laboratory,  if  only  we 
had  adequate  knowledge  and  adequate  apparatus. 

This  view  is  not  only  very  plausible,  but  a  little 
thought  will  show  that  any  other  view  would  be  a 
contradiction  of  the  harmony  and  uniformity  of 
nature.  Instead  of  belittling  the  functions  of  life  or 
spirit  it  exalts  them,  and  the  old  view  really  belittles 
them.  The  old  view  makes  the  life  or  spirit  enter 
the  same  sphere  and  perform  some  of  the  same  kind 
of  acts  that  are  performed  by  chemical  and  mechan- 
ical energies.  It  thus  degrades  it  to  their  level  and 
makes  it  seem,  in  part  at  least,  an  entity  of  the  same 
grade  and  nature  as  they  are. 

But  that  is  not  the  function  of  spirit.  Its  function 
is  to  control  or  direct  energies.  The  chemical  and 
mechanical  energies  do  the  work,  and  the  spirit 
determines  and  directs  what  particular  piece  of  work 
they  shall  do.     This  is  equally  true  in  the  nervous 


86  GOD   AND   NATURE 

system  and  in  a  railroad  system,  amid  the  clang  of 
a  great  iron  works  or  in  the  silence  of  a  tissue  cell. 

How  it  thus  directs  energy  we  cannot  explain. 
And  in  the  ultimate  analysis  we  can  no  more  ex- 
plain in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other, — how  spirit 
directs  the  activity  of  the  great  iron  works  or  of  the 
tissue  cell.  But  the  significant  point  is  that  what  it 
does,  and  what  we  would  expect  it  to  do  if  it  did 
anything,  is  not  to  turn  part  of  the  machinery  but  to 
superintend  and  direct. 

Now  we  know  by  experience  or  consciousness 
that  in  man  there  is  such  a  directing  and  superin- 
tending agent  of  enormous  resourcefulness.  We 
can  trace  its  activity  from  the  purely  voluntary 
motions  down  through  the  semi-voluntary  motions 
and  those  of  less  and  less  consciousness,  to  the 
point  where  consciousness  is  entirely  absent.  As 
there  is  no  indication  of  a  break  or  limit  anywhere 
we  are  irresistibly  impelled  to  go  still  further  and 
conclude  that  all  the  activities  in  the  living  body  are 
under  the  control  and  superintendence  of  this  same 
agency.  That  control  or  superintendence,  in  one 
sense,  does  not  determine  what  kind  of  activity  shall 
be  exerted,  as  that  is  entirely  governed  by  the  laws 
of  the  chemical  or  mechanical  energies  that  produce 
it,  but  what  it  does  control  is  where,  when  and  to 
what  extent  that  activity  shall  be  carried  on.  This, 
however,  is  sufficient  for  all  purposes.  It  controls 
the  result  produced.  It  is  the  designing,  not  the 
efficient  cause. 

Evolution,  by  proving  the  continuity  of  all  life, 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  87 

has  shown  that  this  same  agent,  which  has  such 
marvellous  directing  power  in  man,  is  present  in 
every  Hving  creature,  down  to  the  first  primordial 
cell.  With  such  a  directing,  controlling  agent 
present,  can  it  be  doubted  that  it  was  concerned  in 
all  the  myriad  and  continuous  series  of  selections 
and  adaptations  which  brought  about  the  course  of 
evolution  ?  Especially  since  it  is  precisely  adapted 
to  do  that,  and  it  is  almost  impossible  to  conceive 
adequate  causes  for  these  things  elsewhere,  and  also 
since  there  are  actual  observed  indications  of  its 
activity  in  those  lines  in  very  low  forms  of  organ- 
ism. 

Design,  therefore,  and  the  assembling  of  means  to 
effect  an  end  is  one  of  the  essential  and  fundamental 
factors  of  the  evolution  process  itself.  More  recent 
biologists  are  inclined  to  give  more  place  than 
formerly,  in  the  list  of  factors  producing  evolution- 
ary progress,  to  selection  and  adaptation  to  environ- 
ment. Both  of  these  agencies  have  as  a  very  essen- 
tial, fundamental  element  this  same  act  of  assembling 
means  to  bring  about  a  desired  object.  Indeed,  if, 
as  evolution  claims,  this  life  which  is  actively 
present  in  all  these  living  organisms  from  highest  to 
lowest,  and  has  a  determining  or  regulating  influ- 
ence upon  all  their  characteristic  activities,  is 
genetically  the  same  and  continuous  throughout,  and 
therefore  the  same  as  that  which  appears  as  the 
mental  or  spiritual  part  of  man's  mind,  its  wonderful 
mental  activities  being  but  the  highest  development 
and  most  advanced  activities  of  this  one  and  the 


88  GOD  AND  NATURE 

same  agency,  then  it  would  not  be  a  far  reach  of  the 
imagination  to  suppose  that  all  this  upward  prog- 
ress and  development  might  be  classed  in  the  same 
series  and  attributed  to  precisely  the  same  agency 
as  what  we  call  in  our  experience  invention  and  the 
practical  conquests  of  science.  It  was  but  the 
earlier,  simpler  members  of  the  series  and  these  the 
later,  more  complex  members  of  the  same  series, 
and  all  produced  by  the  same  agency,  and  in  the 
same  way.  The  psychical,  living  entity  in  living 
organisms  by  slow  steps  and  infinitely  repeated 
trials  gradually  invented  pumping  hearts  and  seeing 
eyes,  just  as  later  it  invented  steam  pumps  and  tele- 
scopes. 

But  however  that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  the 
process  of  evolution  is  dependent  for  its  most  es- 
sential factor  on  this  very  act  of  design,  and  adapt- 
ing means  to  an  end.  It  is  acts  of  design  that  have 
brought  about  all  this  evolution  and  these  perfected 
organs.  Even  if  it  be  not  in  some  instances  a  de- 
sign that  has  a  creative  imagination  but  only  a  de- 
sign that  stumbles  on  happy  inventions  and  per- 
petuates and  reproduces  them  afterwards,  let  us 
remember  what  a  large  part  of  our  boasted  inven- 
tions and  scientific  discoveries  are  also  of  that  same 
nature.  In  as  far  as  "adaptation  to  environment" 
is  a  part  of  the  agency  of  evolution  we  have  therein, 
in  all  essential  respects,  design  which  does  have  a 
creative  imagination.  Paley  was  right  then  in  as- 
serting that  the  perfected  organs  and  adaptation  of 
means  to  end  in  animal  structure  prove  a  designer 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  89 

as  the  producing  cause.  We  have  only  found  that 
that  designer  was  the  indwelling  spirit  or  life  in  the 
organism. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  as  has  been  often 
pointed  out,  since  living  organisms  are  very  re- 
cent phenomena  on  this  earth,  their  life  principle  or 
spirit  cannot  be  the  original  first  designer  or  pro- 
ducing cause.  We  have  still  to  account  for  all  the 
phenomena,  plus  the  life  that  caused  it.  Paley's 
basal  illustration  was  that  "  If  I  should  find  a  watch 
in  a  lonely  place  I  would  conclude  with  absolute 
certainty  from  the  evidences  of  design  in  its  struc- 
ture that  it  was  made  by  an  intelligent  being." 
Now  that  is  true  when  we  think  this  watch  was 
made  single,  alone  and  by  hand.  If  we  afterwards 
find  that  it  was  not  so  made  but  was  produced  in  a 
factory  turning  out  thousands  of  exactly  similar  ones 
daily,  and  all  entirely  by  machinery,  that  does  not 
lessen  our  conviction  that  there  was  intelligence 
concerned  in  its  production,  but  increases  that  con- 
viction a  thousand  fold.  If  it  required  intelligence 
to  produce  one  watch  with  its  intricate  machinery 
much  more  would  it  require  intelligence  to  make  all 
the  machines  and  the  factory  that  could  turn  out 
these  watches  by  the  thousand.  And  more  still  to 
make  a  watch  that  had  within  itself  the  machinery 
to  produce  another  watch  that  was  identical  with  it- 
self, even  identical  to  the  extent  of  having  the  same 
producing  machinery.  That  is  the  situation  that 
evolution  and  the  recent  studies  of  biology  put  be- 
fore us.     Life  is  the  factory  which  produces  all  these 


90  GOD  AND  NATURE 

wonderful  mechanisms.  Who  designed  and  built 
the  factory  ?  Certainly  a  factory  with  such  mar- 
vellous capacities  and  adaptability  could  not  have 
originated  by  chance  without  a  designer. 

The  old  problem  as  conceived  by  Paley  was  very 
crude  and  simple,  and  the  inference  drawn  from  it 
seemed  much  more  obvious.  Just  because  this  lat- 
ter problem  is  so  very  wide  and  complex,  and  so 
many  elements  of  it  go  beyond  the  domain  of  obser- 
vation and  the  material,  mechanical  world,  many 
people  are  disposed  to  say  that  we  cannot  draw  a 
sure  conclusion.  Their  answer  is  the  agnostic  one, 
that  we  cannot  or  do  not  know  the  agency  that  built 
the  factory, — that  originated  life  and  surrounded  and 
endowed  it  with  all  these  laws. 

But  the  logic  of  the  case  is  just  as  necessary  here  as 
in  the  simpler  supposition.  Granted  that  we  cannot 
define  all  the  elements  of  the  producing  agency,  yet 
that  does  not  invalidate  the  fact  that  we  can  identify 
one  factor,  namely,  intelligent  design.  If  something 
was  produced  that  could  only  have  been  produced 
by  intelligence  even  if  a  hundred  other  things  were 
produced  at  the  same  time  the  first  fact  still  stands 
and  still  compels  the  same  inference.  If  it  requires 
intelligence  for  a  single  hand-workman  to  make  a 
watch  it  also  requires  intelligence  to  build  and  oper- 
ate the  great  factory,  no  matter  how  many  other 
things  may  also  be  required.  In  building  and 
operating  the  great  factory  there  may  be  necessary 
large  capital,  steady  business  connections  and  a 
number  of  other  things,  so  that  an  ignorant  man 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  9I 

might  Stand  and  wonder  and  think  it  utterly  incom- 
prehensible how  it  could  be  done,  while  he  quite 
clearly  understood  how  the  hand-workman  made  the 
watch.  But  even  so  he  would  not  and  could  not 
doubt  that  there  was  intelligence  behind  the  building 
of  the  factory  merely  because  there  was  much  that 
he  could  not  account  for.  Just  so  the  initiation  of 
life,  the  supplying  suitable  environment,  the  estab- 
Hshing  all  the  laws  and  combinations  which  have 
naturally  and  continuously  led  up  to  the  production 
of  man  with  all  his  perfected  organs,  whatever  else 
it  proves  necessary  in  its  producing  agent  certainly 
proves  that  the  quality  of  intelligence  was  there, — 
that  all  its  work  did  not  proceed  by  blind  chance 
but  there  was  in  some  degree  an  intentional  direc- 
tion of  effort  towards  a  certain  preferred  direction. 

Life  is  a  comparatively  recent  phenomenon  in  the 
world.  Its  advent  must  be  accounted  for.  It  is  the 
machinery  and  factory  that  has  produced  all  the 
beautifully  adapted  bodily  organs.  We  have,  then, 
the  question  whether  it  would  require  more  intelli- 
gence to  make  the  one  watch  by  hand  or  to  make 
the  factory  and  machinery  that  will  continuously 
produce  them  by  wholesale, — whether  it  would  re- 
quire more  intelligence  for  a  creator  to  build  up  the 
body  of  man  as  our  ancestors  believed  it  was  done, 
or  to  make  this  wonderful  thing  called  life,  which 
is  continuously  doing  it.  For  notice,  as  we  have 
pointed  out  above,  that  whatever  assisting  conditions 
there  may  be,  it  is  always  a  life  function  that  pro- 
duces the  progress  that  we  call  organic  evolution. 


92  GOD   AND   NATURE 

That  is  the  real  factory  that  has  produced  the  watch 
which  Paley  claimed  showed  evidences  of  design. 

THINGS   IN   INORGANIC  NATURE  THAT  FIT  MEN'S 
NEEDS 

We  have  spoken  thus  far  only  of  design  as  shown 
in  the  bodily  organs  of  living  animals,  as  that  was 
the  illustration  that  Paley  used  for  his  famous  argu- 
ment. But  a  candid  examination,  I  believe,  will 
show  in  other  fields  also  large  numbers  of  coinci- 
dences that  have  very  much  the  appearance  of  works 
of  design,  and  especially,  as  already  remarked,  since 
we  have  by  the  former  argument  established  the 
existence  of  a  great  first  cause  that  in  other  respects 
has  attributes  similar  to  men's,  seeing  these  coinci- 
dences appearing  in  his  productions,  the  conclusion 
is  the  more  probable  that  they  were  really  designed, 
and  so  they  help  to  prove  that  he  is  a  being  of  intel- 
ligent thought. 

Naturally  we  turn  first  to  those  things  in  nature 
that  seem  specially  suited  to  the  needs  and  pleasures 
of  man  and  the  other  animals.  We  do  so  not  only 
because  such  cases  are  the  most  obvious,  but  because 
they  are  about  the  only  cases  in  which  we  are  com- 
petent to  see  the  design  if  it  does  exist.  By  design, 
as  above  defined,  we  mean  that  a  thing  is  purposely 
made  to  conform  to  a  previously  existing  desire. 
But  we  do  not  know  definitely  of  any  desires  except 
those  of  men  and  other  sentient  creatures.  We 
properly  look  for  design,  therefore,  by  looking  for 
cases  where  events  or  things  seem  purposely  made 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  93 

to  fit  some  need  or  desire  of  man  and  other  sentient 
animals.  The  first  step  will  be  to  find  if  there  are 
things  that  thus  fit  these  needs  and  desires,  and  the 
second  step  to  inquire  whether  there  is  some  other 
sufficient  explanation  for  the  coincidence,  or  whether 
there  is  sufficient  ground  to  think  it  intentional. 

As  to  the  first  step  there  is  no  doubt.  The  world 
is  full  of  such  things.  So  large  is  the  range  of 
things  that  meet  the  needs  and  desires  of  men  and 
animals,  that  there  have  not  been  wanting  men  to 
claim  that  the  whole  universe  is  to  be  explained 
from  the  standpoint  of  some  ministry  to  man's  needs. 
While  this  of  course  is  an  extreme  thought,  yet  it  is 
truly  wonderful  what  an  immense  number  of  different 
things  and  different  events  and  agencies  there  are 
that  are  in  some  way  serviceable  to  men  and  ani- 
mals. Their  number  is  now  beyond  reckoning,  and 
new  ones  are  being  discovered  all  the  time.  It  is 
only  as  to  the  second  step  that  any  inquiry  is  neces- 
sary, namely,  whether  we  are  warranted  in  claiming 
that  all  these,  or  any  of  them,  were  constituted  inten- 
tionally with  reference  to  their  yielding  profit  to 
men. 

Right  at  the  outset  we  are  met  by  a  consideration 
that  seems  to  throw  a  large  number  of  these  things 
out  of  the  count  entirely.  It  is  a  consideration  that 
is  quite  fundamental  in  the  evolution  hypothesis. 
These  things  are  adapted  to  man's  desires  because 
they  have  had  a  moulding  influence  in  making  man 
what  he  is.  They  fit  man  because  he  has  grown 
into  them.     Or  to  put  it  otherwise,  of  a  number  of 


94  GOD   AND   NATURE 

possible  creatures  that  might  have  developed  had 
the  conditions  been  favourable,  that  one  particular 
creature  that  was  adapted  to  the  present  conditions 
survived  and  the  others  died.  Thus  we  might  con- 
ceive that  creatures  might  develop  that  could  live 
only  in  an  atmosphere  of  chlorine  gas,  or  others  only 
in  hydrogen  gas,  others  only  in  pure  oxygen  gas, 
and  others  only  in  a  dilute  mixture  of  oxygen  gas. 
Of  all  these  only  the  last,  the  kind  that  could  live  in 
a  dilute  mixture  of  oxygen  gas,  flourished  on  this 
earth,  because  that  was  the  condition  that  limited  it. 
There  may  or  may  not  be  other  worlds  where  these 
other  conceived  kinds  of  creatures  have  developed 
because  they  have  found  there  the  right  conditions, 
but  in  any  case,  the  explanation  of  the  perfect  adap- 
tation of  the  mixture  of  oxygen  and  nitrogen  to  ani- 
mals' lungs  is  that  only  those  animals  have  survived 
and  developed  to  which  it  was  adapted.  Or,  again, 
a  certain  very  limited  range  of  temperature  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  animal  life.  We  find  just  that 
range  of  temperature  prevailing  on  this  earth  to  suit 
that  need.  But  the  explanation  is  that  animals  first 
began  to  flourish  only  when  and  because  the  tem- 
perature, gradually  descending,  reached  that  range, 
and  the  time  will  come  when  it  will  fall  below  that 
range  and  all  animal  life  cease.  Or,  to  take  a  more 
complicated  instance,  flowers  have  beautiful  colour- 
ing, a  thing  that  is  desirable.  But  we  are  told  that 
it  is  the  colour  that  saves  the  flower  and  the  plant 
just  because  it  is  beautiful  and  desirable.  Insects 
attracted  by  the  beauty  light  upon  it  and  carry  the 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  95 

pollen  away  to  fertilize  other  similar  flowers,  and  so 
perpetuate  the  species,  which  would  die  out  or  not 
advance  if  it  had  not  this  means  of  fertilization.  It 
is  because  the  beauty  is  useful  to  the  plants  them- 
selves that  men  and  insects  find  so  many  beautiful 
flowers  to  delight  them. 

These  are  but  typical  instances  of  a  large  range  of 
facts.  Carbon,  oxygen  and  hydrogen  form  the 
largest  part  of  the  bodies  of  all  living  organisms, 
and  as  if  to  meet  that  need  we  find  them  to  be  every- 
where easily  attainable.  But  the  answer  is  that  it  is 
so  because  only  the  kind  of  organisms  that  depended 
on  using  those  elements  survived  or  developed. 
Had  these  elements  been  very  rare  and  some  other 
elements  been  as  easily  accessible  as  they  are  the 
race  of  organisms  whose  bodies  were  made  up  of 
those  elements  would  have  been  the  race  of  organ- 
isms to  survive.  Light  and  sound  are  both  made 
up  of  vibrations,  those  of  light  being  exceedingly 
swift  and  short  and  those  of  sound  comparatively 
slow  and  long.  There  is  a  long  range  of  vibra- 
tions both  higher  than  light  and  lower  than  sound, 
and  an  exceedingly  long  range  between  them,  but 
only  these  two  narrow  registers  are  useful  to  men, 
as  light  and  sound.  But  just  those  two  narrow 
registers  are  everywhere  the  most  abundant.  The 
reason,  however,  is  that  they  being  the  most  abun- 
dant animals  and  men  have  developed  apparatus 
suitable  to  using  them,  namely,  eyes  and  ears.  Had 
some  other  grade  of  vibrations  been  the  more  com- 
mon  and  these  rare,  as  for  instance  those  of  the 


96  GOD  AND  NATURE 

character  of  the  Roentgen  rays  or  the  ultra-violet 
rays,  then  the  sensitive  apparatus  that  would  have 
developed  with  the  developing  animals  would  have 
been  an  apparatus  suitable  to  discriminating  and 
using  vibrations  of  that  character.  Instances  of  the 
same  nature  may  be  multiplied  at  pleasure. 

These  considerations  are  valid,  and  must  have  a 
great  influence  upon  our  inquiry.  Still  there  remain 
several  questions  to  ask.  First,  are  there  any  cases 
of  such  peculiar  adaptation  of  the  objects  and  circum- 
stances of  the  world  to  the  needs  and  desires  of  man 
and  animals,  which  have  no  genetic  connection  with 
their  growth  or  development,  and  so  have  independ- 
ent meaning?  Second,  as  to  these  others,  though 
it  is  true  that  man  has  become  what  he  is  partly  be- 
cause they  were  here  yet  may  they  not  still  have 
some  value  as  showing  design  in  the  agency  that 
arranged  for  and  started  the  course  of  evolution  ? 
Would  some  other  environment  have  been  able  to 
develop  creatures  of  as  high  a  grade  as  the  existing 
one  has  ? 

ADAPTATIONS  WHICH   DO   NOT   HAVE  A   GENETIC 
ORIGIN 

First,  are  there  any  cases  of  adaptation  to  men's 
and  animals'  desires  which  have  no  genetic  connec- 
tion with  their  evolution,  as  outlined  above ;  that 
is,  that  have  not  been  caused  by  their  desires  or 
moulded  the  desire  to  which  they  conform  ?  I  think 
a  close  study  will  reveal  many  such.  There  are 
cases  where  the  object  that  fulfills  man's  desire  had 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  97 

no  possible  influence  in  forming  that  desire.  Even 
as  to  the  cases  where  it  is  conceivably  possible  that 
there  was  some  genetic  connection,  the  number  and 
variety  of  objects  is  so  exceedingly  great  that  it  is 
hardly  possible  that  all  of  them  have  that  connec- 
tion. For  instance,  it  is  an  exceedingly  interesting 
and  clever  explanation  which  shows  how  the  cross 
fertilization  effected  by  insects  attracted  by  the 
beauty  of  certain  flowers  has  caused  the  plants  that 
had  that  beauty  in  their  flowers  to  survive  and  ad- 
vance, but  it  is  a  very  far  reach  from  that  to  the 
proposition  that  all  the  beauty  and  colour  in  all 
flowers  is  due  to  that  cause.  Besides  there  is  very 
much  of  colouring  in  plants  to  which  that  will  not 
apply,  as  for  instance  the  autumn  colouring  of  leaves, 
in  fact  all  colouring  of  leaves  and  all  colour  in  plants 
except  the  flowers,  and  perhaps  only  a  limited 
range  of  that.  Notice  it  is  the  beauty  as  beauty 
that  we  are  speaking  of  now.  The  colour  itself  may 
have,  indeed  must  have,  a  genetic  reason  in  the  life 
of  the  plant  itself,  but  the  fact  that  thereby  so  much 
of  beauty  is  produced, — as  a  by-product,  so  to 
speak, — that  is  the  coincidence  which  is  now  under 
consideration  as  possibly  giving  indication  of  design. 
Not  only  in  living  plants  but  in  all  nature  we  find 
beauty.  The  sunset  sky,  the  rainbow,  the  frost 
flowers  and  snowflakes,  are  but  types  of  a  beauty 
found  everywhere  in  inanimate  nature  which  makes 
its  study  always  fascinating.  Such  beauty  is  not  the 
exception  but  is  everywhere  seen  and  felt  if  only  the 
eye  and  taste  are  a  little  trained. 


98  GOD   AND   NATURE 

Two  questions  arise  with  regard  to  this.  First,  is 
this  beauty  valuable  to  men  and  animals  in  the  strug- 
gle for  survival  ?  and  second,  is  the  feeling  of  beauty 
itself  merely  a  reflex  of  the  mind  responding  to  its 
environment  ?  That  is  to  say,  these  things,  colours 
and  shapes,  exist,  and  merely  because  they  do  exist 
the  mind  adapts  itself  to  contact  with  them  and  that 
adaptation  or  "  comfortable  contact "  is  the  sensa- 
tion that  we  call  beauty. 

As  to  this  second  question  we  may  say  that  just 
the  opposite  is  what  we  observe  to  be  true.  It  is  not 
what  we  have  grown  up  in  familiar  contact  with  that 
we  are  most  apt  to  appreciate  as  beautiful.  That 
familiar  contact  has  just  the  opposite  effect  and  even 
with  very  beautiful  objects,  if  we  have  long  been 
familiar  with  them,  we  cease  often  to  be  impressed 
with  this  feeling  of  beauty  at  all. 

The  answer  to  the  first  question  must  also  be  neg- 
ative. If  the  feeling  of  beauty  in  the  things  about 
us  was  an  efficient  factor  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
then  we  would  find  it  strongest  in  the  savage  who  is 
nearest  to  the  stage  of  conflict  and  survival.  But  we 
find  just  the  opposite  true.  The  savage  in  the  midst 
of  surroundings  in  which  a  cultivated  mind  would 
have  an  intense  feeling  of  beauty  has  no  feeling  of 
beauty  at  all.  It  is  the  most  highly  developed  mind, 
most  able  to  see  deeply  and  understand,  that  first 
comes  to  see  the  beauty  in  many  things  and  has  the 
keenest  feeling  of  beauty  in  all  things. 

Here  then  we  have  a  large  range  of  facts, — a  large 
proportion  of  the  whole  realm   of   beauty, — which 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  99 

Stands  out  independent,  and  is  not  merely  a  cog  in 
the  great  machine  of  evolution.  Whatever  its  value, 
greater  or  less,  it  is  valid  evidence.  Doubtless  all 
these  facts  that  give  this  sense  of  beauty  have  had  a 
natural  genesis,  either  by  evolution  or  otherwise,  and 
we  may  concede  that  the  taste  or  faculty  of  the  mind, 
which  desires  these  beautiful  scenes  and  finds  pleas- 
ure in  them,  has  also  had  a  natural  genesis  of  some 
kind.  But  the  two  lines  of  genesis  are  distinct  and 
independent  of  each  other.  One  has  not  caused  the 
other.  They  have  produced  these  results  independ- 
ently. The  coincidence  to  be  explained  is  that  the 
finished  products  match  each  other.  The  resulting 
shapes,  colours,  etc.,  exactly  satisfy  the  resulting  de- 
sires. All  these  colours,  shapes  and  scenes,  which 
have  had  their  independent  genesis,  just  fit  this  desire 
in  the  mind,  which  has  had  its  own  independent  gen- 
esis. It  is  a  coincidence'  that  calls  for  explanation, 
however  much  or  little  weight  it  may  have  as  evi- 
dence of  design.  Of  course  it  might  be  but  an  ac- 
cidental coincidence  and  nothing  more.  Still,  the 
vast  number, — the  almost  universal  prevalence  of 
these  correspondences, — of  these  things  that  rouse 
the  feeling  of  beauty  and  fulfill  our  desires,  makes  it 
very  hard  to  suppose  that  it  can  be  all  merely  acci- 
dental coincidence.  And  especially  so  since  we  know 
that  there  is  a  great  first  cause  which  started  all  this 
course,  and  that  first  cause  has  at  least  some  of  the 
attributes  man's  mind  has,  and  might  easily  be  sup- 
posed to  have  the  intelligence  to  plan  these  coinci- 
dences also. 


lOO  GOD  AND  NATURE 

In  answer  then  to  the  question  asked,  "  Are  there 
any  cases  of  adaptation  of  the  objects  and  circum- 
stances of  the  world  to  the  needs  and  desires  of  men 
and  animals  which  have  no  genetic  connection  with 
their  growth  and  development?"  we  have  found 
at  least  one  series  of  such  adaptations,  namely,  many 
objects  and  scenes  of  beauty.  Others  could  doubt- 
less be  pointed  out  in  other  realms,  as  for  instance 
in  the  realm  of  the  sublime,  the  realm  of  music  and 
sound,  etc.,  and  all  things  that  minister  only  to  man's 
pleasure.  With  those  things  that  minister  to  man's 
profit,  however,  it  is  more  difficult  to  establish  that 
they  have  independent  genesis,  for  one  of  the  claims 
of  many  evolutionists  is  that  everything  that  is  prof- 
itable to  man's  or  an  animal's  life  is  so  merely  be- 
cause the  kind  of  animal  to  which  that  thing  was 
profitable  survived  and  the  others  to  which  it  was 
not  profitable  perished.  This  may  or  may  not  be 
true,  but  at  least  it  affects  their  value  as  evidence. 
We  may  therefore  pass  to  the  second  question  pro- 
pounded, whether  even  those  profitable  objects  that 
have  helped  to  make  man  and  the  animals  what  they 
are  may  not  still  also  have  some  value  as  evidence 
of  a  designing  intelligence. 

DESIGN   IN   ORGANIC   NATURE 

As  to  bodily  appetites,  pleasures  and  pains  physi- 
ologists have  a  very  simple  explanation.  Why  does 
a  wound  give  pain,  eating  nourishing  food  give 
pleasure,  etc.  ?  The  answer  is  that  they  do  not  neces- 
sarily  in   themselves,  but  different  sentient  beings 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  lOI 

would  be  differently  disposed  towards  such  things 
when  they  experienced  them.  Some,  we  may  sup- 
pose, would  feel  a  strong  dislike  to  the  sensation  ex- 
perienced when  food  was  taken  and  a  strong  desire 
for  the  sensation  experienced  when  a  wound  was  in- 
flicted. Others  would  feel  just  the  opposite  and 
others  all  gradations  between.  Now  it  is  evident 
that  those  creatures  that  had  a  desire  for  the  kind  of 
sensation  they  experienced  when  they  ate  food  would 
be  more  apt  to  eat  food  than  the  ones  that  had  a 
strong  dislike  for  that  sensation,  and  a  great  many 
more  of  that  kind  of  animals  would  live  and  bear 
offspring  than  of  the  other,  and  in  a  keen  struggle 
for  existence  only  that  kind  would  survive,  and  the 
kind  that  disliked  the  sensation  of  eating,  or  had 
only  a  slight  liking  for  it  would  not  take  the  great 
pains  necessary  to  get  food,  and  would  soon  die  out 
entirely.  In  the  same  way  the  animal  that  had  a 
strong  liking  for  the  sensations  experienced  when 
wounded  would  not  take  pains  to  avoid  injuries,  and 
soon  all  of  those  species  of  animals  would  die  out 
and  only  those  be  left  that  had  a  strong  dislike  for 
those  sensations.  In  this  way  all  the  existing  ani- 
mals would  have  a  strong  dislike  to  the  sensations 
of  wounds  and  a  strong  liking  to  the  sensations  of 
eating,  because  all  the  animals  that  did  not  would 
have  died  out  and  only  these  be  left.  In  this  way  is 
explained  the  genesis  of  the  feelings  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  and  in  a  similar  way  would  be  explained  the 
genesis  of  all  other  desires  or  aversions  that  minister 
to  the  well-being  of  the  individual. 


I02  GOD  AND   NATURE 

Now  this  explanation,  while  only  a  hypothesis,  is 
a  very  plausible  and  likely  hypothesis  for  the  most 
part.  Still  we  cannot  at  all  exclude  the  possibility 
that  some  or  all  of  these  desires  may  have  been  in 
all  creatures  from  the  start  and  not  merely  be  the 
remnant  sorted  out  of  a  large  list  of  miscellaneous 
and  contradictory  tendencies  which  arose  blindly 
without  cause  or  design.  However  since  such  an 
explanation  is  at  all  conceivable  we  cannot  use  this 
fact  of  useful  appetites  and  tendencies  as  proof  of  a 
designing  creator,  unless  in  any  case  there  be  suf- 
ficient proof  that  it  was  not  thus  caused  by  selection 
but  had  independent  origin. 

We  may  grant  then  this  point,  and  throw  out  of 
the  count  all  the  bodily  appetites,  desires  and 
tendencies,  merely  making  one  reservation,  or  call- 
ing attention  to  one  consideration.  The  number  of 
these  appetites  and  tendencies,  in  the  life,  bodily 
structure  and  growth  of  animals,  is  so  very  great, 
and  as  each  particular  one  is  assumed  to  have  been 
produced  by  a  large  number  of  gradual  steps,  each 
step  only  having  "  a  fighting  chance  "  of  succeeding, 
the  total  number  of  all  the  steps  necessary  to  pro- 
duce all  the  useful  appetites  and  tendencies  must 
therefore  have  been  something  perfectly  enormous, 
and  the  difficulty  of  succeeding  and  reaching  the 
goal  increases  to  some  extent  in  a  geometrical  ratio 
with  the  number  of  steps.  One  wonders  if  all  these 
desires  and  appetites  did  arise  solely  in  that  one 
way.  And  even  granting  that  all  progress  in  these 
respects  has  been  merely  following  the  line  of  least 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  103 

resistance,  it  would  not  be  an  unwelcome  suggestion 
to  suppose,  if  there  is  an  intelligence  somewhere 
guiding  the  affairs  of  the  universe,  that  that  line  of 
least  resistance  has  itself  in  some  degree  been 
intentionally  prepared  and  controlled. 

STRONGEST  PROOF  OF  DESIGN  IN  THE  FACT  OF 
A  SUITABLE  ENVIRONMENT 

Leaving  out,  then,  all  these  internal  appetites  and 
tendencies  that  are  useful  to  animal  life,  there 
remains  to  be  considered  a  very  large  number  of 
external  facts  and  circumstances  useful  to  that  life, 
and  we  must  ask  the  question,  How  is  it  that  life 
finds  all  these  many  useful  facts  and  circumstances 
to  aid  it  ? 

Here  again  the  answer  is  made :  "  It  finds  them 
useful  just  because  it  has  shaped  itself  so  that  they 
will  be  useful."  In  other  words,  "  Out  of  a  vast 
number  of  kinds  of  creatures  that  might  have 
existed  only  those  have  come  to  being  and  survived 
to  which  these  conditions  were  useful."  At  first 
sight  this  answer  seems  very  plausible  and  satis- 
factory. In  the  illustration  we  have  used  above, 
there  is  just  as  much  intrinsic  probability  of  the 
atmosphere  of  this  earth  being  chlorine  gas,  sul- 
phurous acid  gas,  or  any  other  of  a  thousand  gases, 
in  no  one  of  which  would  man  be  able  to  live,  but 
the  remarkable  coincidence  that  just  the  mixture  of 
oxygen  and  nitrogen  gas  that  is  suited  to  man's 
needs  is  the  very  gas  that  forms  the  atmosphere  of 
this  earth  where  man  is,  is  explained  by  saying  that 


I04  GOD   AND   NATURE 

as  creatures  developed  in  the  course  of  evolution, 
just  the  kind  of  creature  that  was  suited  to  live  in 
such  an  atmosphere  developed  to  fit  it.  If  other 
kinds  started  to  develop  they  would  find  the  atmos- 
phere unsuited  to  their  needs,  and  so  would  not 
thrive,  and  soon  die  off,  and  only  this  kind  to  which 
this  kind  of  an  atmosphere  was  suitable  would 
permanently  live  and  develop. 

While  this  answer  is  quite  valid  as  far  as  it  goes, 
yet  it  overlooks  a  very  important  consideration, 
which  entirely  changes  the  nature  of  the  problem. 
Granted  that  this  kind  of  creatures,  and  man  as  the 
highest  member,  have  developed  to  this  form  be- 
cause the  atmosphere  and  other  things  were  suitable 
to  their  developing  to  this  form,  yet  the  important 
question  is :  Had  the  atmosphere  been  different 
could  a  race  of  creatures  as  high  as  man  have  lived 
and  developed  in  such  an  atmosphere?  It  is  a 
question  whose  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the  chem- 
ical and  mechanical  laws.  If  the  atmosphere  of  this 
earth  had  consisted  entirely  of  chlorine  gas  or 
sulphurous  acid  gas  or  some  other  substance,  do  the 
known  chemical  and  mechanical  laws  teach  us  that  it 
would  have  been  possible  to  build  up  a  race  of 
creatures  whose  bodies  were  suited  to  live  in  such 
an  atmosphere,  and  not  only  so  but  to  develop  them 
to  the  height  that  man  has  now  attained.  For  if 
not,  then  the  question  remains :  How  does  it  come 
that  out  of  the  millions  of  possible  kinds  of  atmosphere 
and  environment  we  happen  to  have  just  the  one  kind 
in  which  a  high  order  of  creatures  could  develop  ? 


TELEOLOGICAL   ARGUMENT  I05 

We  must  notice  that  the  protoplasm  which  forms 
the  basis  of  all  living  bodies  could  not  exist  in  such 
an  atmosphere.  We  have  therefore  the  chemical 
problem  whether  it  is  possible  with  other  groups  of 
elements  besides  carbon,  oxygen,  hydrogen,  nitro- 
gen, etc.,  to  build  up  some  substitute  for  protoplasm, 
with  as  many  marvellous  capabilities  as  protoplasm 
has,  and  like  it  suited  to  form  a  body  that  would  be 
a  good  vehicle  and  instrument  of  life.  For  since 
our  assumed  atmosphere  would  not  permit  proto- 
plasm to  exist,  if  there  is  to  be  any  race  of  living 
creatures  at  all  their  bodies  must  be  composed  of 
some  other  substance  different  from  protoplasm, 
but  a  substance  with  as  many  marvellous  potentiali- 
ties as  protoplasm  has.  But  chemistry  knows  of  no 
other  group  of  elements  that  are  capable  of  any- 
thing like  the  vast  number,  complexity  and  delicacy 
of  combinations  that  the  elements  which  form  the 
basis  of  protoplasm  are  capable  of. 

Moreover  in  order  to  maintain  that  there  is  no 
evidence  of  design  in  the  process  of  evolution  we 
must  be  able  to  show,  not  only  that  other  groups  of 
elements  are  capable  of  building  up  a  substance 
analogous  to  protoplasm,  capable  of  being  the 
vehicle  of  life,  and  indeed  capable  of  sustaining  and 
developing  just  as  high  a  form  of  life  as  we  now 
have,  but  practically  we  must  be  able  to  show  that 
any  group  of  elements  whatsoever  that  might  be 
selected  would  be  equally  capable  of  doing  so. 
For  by  varying  the  nature  of  the  atmosphere,  and  of 
the  other  elements  of  our  environment,  as  described 


Io6  GOD   AND   NATURE 

below,  we  could  easily  bring  about  or  posit  a  state 
of  affairs  in  which  any  given  combination  of  ele- 
ments would  be  the  only  one  that  could  easily  and 
spontaneously  be  made  use  of  for  building  up  life 
structures  and  so  only  animals  whose  bodies  were 
composed  of  those  elements  could  live.  But  thus 
far  chemical  research  has  not  found  a  single  other 
group  of  elements  that  exhibit  any  approach  to 
such  possibilities  of  combination.  To  suppose  that 
any  and  every  possible  group  would  have  such  possi- 
bilities is  directly  contrary  to  all  the  teachings  of 
chemistry  and  supremely  improbable. 

Unless  then  we  can  maintain  that  every  possible 
group  of  elements  would  form  an  equally  good  ma- 
terial for  the  building  up  of  life  structures  we  have 
to  face  the  question  :  "  How  does  it  come  that  in  this 
world  there  is  an  easily  available  supply  of  each  and 
all  of  that  group  of  elements  which  alone  of  all  the 
elements  is  suited  to  build  up  living  organisms  and 
sustain  a  high  grade  of  life?"  For  we  must  re- 
member that  intrinsically  any  other  condition  or  dis- 
tribution is  just  as  probable  as  the  one  we  have.  It 
would  be  just  as  intrinsically  probable  that  the 
surplus  of  gas  left  free  to  form  the  atmosphere  should 
be  any  other  gas,  even  helium,  argon,  or  any  of  the 
most  rare  and  scarce  substances,  as  that  it  should  be 
oxygen  and  nitrogen  ;  indeed  there  is  no  intrinsic 
reason  why  those  substances  should  not  be  extremely 
abundant  and  oxygen  and  carbon  as  rare  in  the  uni- 
verse as  they  seem  to  be. 

Indeed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  mere  "  law  of 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  107 

probabilities "  it  is  a  most  marvellous  thing  that 
there  should  be  any  free  oxygen  in  the  world  at  all. 
Oxygen  enters  into  combination  much  more  easily, 
and  with  a  very  much  wider  range  of  other  elements 
than  perhaps  any  other  elementary  substance.  We 
should  naturally  expect,  therefore,  that  every  possible 
bit  of  oxygen  would  have  found  some  substance  it 
could  unite  with  and  be  all  locked  up  in  such  com- 
binations. Instead  we  find  that,  with  one  exception, 
it  is  the  only  one  of  all  the  elements  that  is  found  in 
any  large  quantity  in  the  free  state,  and  it  is  found 
in  that  free  state  in  immense  quantities  as  though 
just  waiting  to  be  used  as  the  great  dynamic  force 
for  all  the  world's  activities.  How  does  it  come  that 
there  is  this  great  surplus  of  just  this  one  elementary 
substance  of  which  it  is  very  much  more  improbable 
than  of  any  other  that  there  should  be  a  surplus  ? 
And  the  whole  process  of  evolution  is  absolutely  de- 
pendent on  it. 

This  fact  seems  to  indicate  a  designing  mind  some- 
where behind  phenomena.  We  do  not  therefore  get 
rid  of  all  evidence  of  design  by  showing  that  animals 
and  man  have  merely  grown  to  fit  the  atmosphere 
in  which  they  found  themselves.  The  question  still 
remains  why  there  happens  to  be  this  particular  kind 
of  atmosphere,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  only  one 
out  of  thousands  of  equally  probable  ones  that  would 
sustain  and  develop  a  high  form  of  life.  It  is  there 
that  we  find  it  difficult  to  believe  that  there  has  been 
no  intelligent  mind  purposely  arranging  things  in 
the  universe  so  as  to  produce  a  desirable  result.     It 


lo8  GOD  AND  NATURE 

is  there  that  we  find  evidence  of  design  in  the  process 
of  man's  evolution.  Every  breath  of  air  we  breathe 
is  a  proof  of  a  designing  mind  existing  somewhere 
behind  the  phenomena  of  this  world. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  atmosphere  that  has  a  vital 
connection  with  life.  The  easy  abundance  of  water 
is  also  a  vital  necessity.  Now  water,  or  its  con- 
stituents, oxygen  and  hydrogen,  enters  into  countless 
combinations  with  other  substances.  It  is  only  a 
comparatively  very  small  fraction  of  the  whole 
amount  existing  in  the  world  that  is  left  in  the  free, 
uncombined  state  of  water.  We  do  not  find  lakes 
and  seas  of  free  hydrochloric  acid,  sulphuric  acid,  or 
any  other  of  the  large  number  of  other  liquids,  of 
which  there  was  just  as  much  intrinsic  probability  of 
there  being  a  free  surplus  left  to  be  the  liquid  of  the 
globe.  So  vast  is  the  comparative  quantity  of  the 
water  and  all  these  other  compounds  that  is  in  hard 
and  inert  compounds  in  the  solid  material  of  the 
earth,  and  so  very  small  proportionately  is  the 
amount  that  is  free  as  water,  that  had  there  been  in 
the  material  that  condensed  to  form  this  earth  even 
a  very  small  per  cent,  less  of  the  elements  that  con- 
stitute water,  and  a  fraction  of  a  per  cent,  more  of  the 
elements  that  constitute  some  of  these  other  liquids, 
instead  of  having  rivers  and  oceans  of  water  we 
would  just  as  normally  have  had  rivers  and  oceans 
of  sulphuric  acid  or  nitric  acid  or  some  other  liquid. 

Here  again,  then,  are  a  thousand  possible  condi- 
tions, none  of  which  would  make  possible  the  life  of 
the  creatures  that  now  exist,  but  by  the  supposition 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  109 

in  question  there  must  be  a  separate  substitute  for 
protoplasm  capable  of  being  formed  out  of  eacli 
separate  one  of  them  that  would  be  capable  of  de- 
veloping as  high  a  race  of  beings  as  man  is.  And 
not  only  so  but  each  separate  one  of  these  different 
kinds  of  liquid  oceans  might  come  in  conjunction 
with  a  different  kind  of  the  very  many  possible  kinds 
of  atmosphere  discussed  above  and  each  different 
conjunction  would  form  an  entirely  different  environ- 
ment, requiring  a  different  kind  of  creature  to  thrive 
in  it,  and  all  these  must  be  kinds  of  creatures  that 
were  capable  of  developing  to  as  high  a  condition  as 
man  has.  And  by  "  different  kind  of  creature  "  is 
not  meant  merely  a  different  species,  as  horses  differ 
from  cows,  for  instance,  or  even  as  mammals  differ 
from  insects.  The  fundamental  conditions  of  life, — the 
protoplasm  in  their  bodies, — is  the  same  for  all  these 
known  species.  It  must  be  a  different  kind  of  crea- 
tures, whose  bodies  were  composed  of  a  differently 
composed  protoplasm,  for  each  of  these  different 
possible  combinations  of  environment. 

Now  a  thousand  different  kinds  of  atmosphere  and 
a  thousand  different  kinds  of  liquid  composing  the 
possible  seas,  would  make  possible  a  million  different 
possible  combinations  or  environments  and  a  million 
different  kinds  of  protoplasm  to  form  the  kinds  of 
bodies  that  would  thrive  in  each  environment.  Of 
course  any  such  supposition  is  entirely  impossible. 

But  this  is  not  all.  These  are  not  the  only  im- 
portant things  in  our  present  environment.  The 
character  of  the  soil  in  which  plants  grow  has  an 


no  GOD   AND   NATURE 

essential  connection  with  their  production,  and 
animal  life  is  conditioned  by  these  plant  produc- 
tions. Now  suppose  that  instead  of  compounds  of 
aluminum,  silicon,  calcium,  etc.,  forming  the  main 
bulk  of  our  soil,  it  had  been  some  other  elements, 
say  arsenic,  radium,  iodine,  etc.  It  is  evident  that 
none  of  the  life  that  now  exists  could  exist  in  such 
a  world.  It  must  be  an  entirely  different  kind  of 
creature  formed  from  a  different  kind  of  protoplasm 
that  would  be  rendered  necessary  by  each  separate 
combination  of  preponderating  elements  in  the  soil. 
Here  again,  then,  would  be  thousands  of  possible 
different  environments,  each  necessitating  a  different 
kind  of  protoplasm  and  different  kind  of  creature, 
and  each  or  any  one  of  them  was  just  as  intrinsically 
probable  as  our  present  kind  of  soil.  Moreover  each 
one  of  these  different  kinds  of  soil  might  have  oc- 
curred in  conjunction  with  each  or  any  one  of  all 
the  thousand  possible  kinds  of  atmospheres,  and 
thousand  kinds  of  possible  liquid  oceans.  A  little 
computation  will  show  how  nearly  infinite  are  the 
number  of  possible  different  environments,  and  each 
one  just  as  intrinsically  probable  as  any  other,  or  as 
our  present  environment.  According  to  the  hypoth- 
esis under  consideration  any  one  of  these  must 
have  produced  a  race  of  creatures  that  would  have 
developed  as  high  as  man  has,  if  it  had  happened  to 
be  the  particular  combination  and  proportion  of  ele- 
ments that  existed  in  the  universe.  But  such  a 
supposition  is  certainly  absurd. 

In  all  the   above   we   have   spoken   only   of  the 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  III 

quantity  and  distribution  of  material  elements. 
There  still  remains  all  the  vast  question  of  the  laws 
that  regulate  the  interaction  of  these  elements. 
Here  again  we  find  that  of  the  thousand  laws  that 
cooperate  to  produce  the  conditions  necessary  for 
the  high  development  that  exists,  if  but  a  single  one 
had  been  different  it  might  have  blocked  the  whole 
progress  and  rendered  impossible  any  living  organ- 
isms at  all.  Take  one  very  easy  instance.  Oxygen 
combines  with  nitrogen  just  as  naturally  as  with 
sulphur  or  carbon,  and  the  resultant  is  a  series  of 
very  active  acids.  Suppose  that  it  would  unite  with 
it  spontaneously  as  it  does  with  almost  all  the  other 
elements.  Suppose  that  nitrogen  gas  would  *'  burn  " 
like  hydrogen  gas  or  common  illuminating  gas. 
The  result  would  be  that  the  first  spark  of  fire  would 
cause  the  whole  atmosphere  to  catch  fire  and  burn 
up  in  a  vast  conflagration  producing  a  vast  sea  of 
nitric  acid  and  every  particle  of  oxygen  in  the 
atmosphere  would  be  used  up  and  none  available  to 
breathe. 

This  is  but  a  single  instance.  There  are  thousands 
of  other  cases  where  a  very  slight  change  in  the 
laws  that  govern  the  atomic  interactions  or  change 
in  some  other  natural  law  would  render  entirely  im- 
possible all  forms  of  life  of  the  order  that  now  exists. 
This  too  must  be  taken  in  connection  with  what  is 
said  above  about  material  elements.  It  was  shown 
that  on  the  basis  merely  of  the  quantity  and  dis- 
tribution of  the  material  elements  the  chances  would 
be  millions  to  one  against  the  probability  of  condi- 


112  GOD  AND   NATURE 

tions  suitable  to  develop  a  high  grade  of  living 
beings.  When  we  take  into  consideration  then  all 
these  natural  laws,  the  adverse  chances  would  again 
be  multiplied  a  thousand  fold. 

We  must  take  into  consideration,  too,  that  as  far 
as  we  are  able  to  determine,  the  condition  of  all 
the  rest  of  the  universe  is  the  same  in  all  these  re- 
spects, as  our  world.  It  is  true  that  there  are  many 
millions  perhaps  billions  of  different  worlds  or 
bodies  in  the  universe.  But  we  may  not  say  that 
that  helps  to  balance  the  adverse  chances,  and  this 
is  the  one  suitable  one  out  of  the  billions  of  un- 
suitable ones.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  the  relative  quantity  and  distribution  of  material 
elements  and  the  laws  that  govern  them  are  sub- 
stantially the  same  in  all  of  these  billions  of  worlds 
and  suns.  The  common  theory  that  they  are  all 
parts  separated  off  from  the  one  great,  original 
homogenous  body,  or  immense  nebula,  would  imply 
this,  and  all  the  results  of  investigation  by  spectrum 
analysis  and  other  methods  confirm  that  view.  This 
world  is  not  one  world  out  of  billions  of  worlds  of 
different  characters,  which  just  happened  to  be  the 
variety  that  was  suited  for  a  high  form  of  life.  The 
fact  is  that  the  whole  universe, — the  only  universe 
that  exists  as  far  as  we  know, — when  it  came  into 
being  came  into  being  fitted  up  with  just  the  quantity 
and  proportion  of  the  right  kind  of  elements,  and 
with  just  the  necessary  natural  laws  to  make  possible 
and  lead  up  to  a  very  high  form  of  living  creatures 
though  so  many  factors  and  conditions  were  neces- 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  II3 

sary  to  cooperate  for  this  end  that  the  chances  were 
thousands  or  millions  to  one  against  the  necessary 
conditions  being  brought  about  by  chance. 

How  does  it  come,  then,  that  out  of  the  millions  of 
equally  probable  ones  we  happen  to  have  just  the 
one  combination  of  natural  laws,  and  of  atmosphere, 
ocean,  soil  and  other  things,  which  is  capable  of  sus- 
taining and  nourishing  a  kind  of  protoplasm  that 
can  form  the  bodies  of  a  high  order  of  living  beings  ? 
That  is  the  coincidence  that  cannot  be  a  mere  chance, 
and  seems  to  point  positively  to  some  kind  of  inten- 
tion or  designing  thought  behind  the  condition  of 
the  existing  universe. 

As  a  biological  principle  this  principle  of  adapta- 
tion to  environment  is  undoubtedly  valid.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  animals  and  men  have  developed  to 
fit  the  environment  which  they  found  existing,  and 
that  accounts  for  the  fact  that  this  environment  so 
perfectly  fits  them.  But  the  real  significant  question 
is.  How  does  it  come  that  the  existent  environment 
is  one  just  suited  to  draw  out  and  develop  such  a 
high  race  of  creatures,  when  the  intrinsic  probability 
was  only  one  in  millions  of  its  being  so  ?  Granted 
that  it  is  just  the  mould  into  which  the  evolution 
forces  and  tendencies  have  run,  and  the  fact  that  it 
has  shaped  the  race  of  living  creatures  accounts  for 
its  perfect  correspondence  to  the  needs  of  that 
resultant  life,  but  the  question  still  remains, — How 
do  you  account  for  that  mould?  It  is  such  an  intricate 
mechanism,  so  perfectly  adapted  to  produce  a  high 
result,  and  the  lack  of  a  single  one  of  its  thousand 


114  GOD   AND   NATURE 

parts  and  adjustments  would  have  rendered  it  en- 
tirely unable  to  produce  that  result.  There  is  where 
the  real  evidence  of  design  appears. 

Whether  or  not  there  might  be  some  other  kind 
of  environment  that  could  have  developed  a  high 
race  of  living  beings  it  is  certainly  true  that  there 
are  millions  of  possible  combinations  that  could  not, 
and  any  one  of  those  millions  of  combinations  was 
originally  as  intrinsically  probable  as  the  combination 
that  now  exists.  The  conclusion  is  just  as  valid 
as  it  was  in  Paley's  time  that  it  is  illogical  to  sup- 
pose that  this  could  all  have  happened  entirely  by 
chance. 

But  more  than  that,  we  have  already  proved  in 
the  previous  sections  that  there  must  have  existed 
at  the  beginning  of  the  great  universe  process,  and 
as  the  agent  that  initiated  it,  some  great  agent 
which,  in  at  least  one  respect,  was  similar,  on  an 
infinite  scale,  to  the  human  soul.  Indeed  we  saw 
that  it  was  very  plausible  to  suppose  that  he  pos- 
sessed all  the  fundamental  attributes  the  human 
soul  possesses,  including,  of  course,  the  faculties  of 
intelligence,  reason  and  design. 

With  such  a  being  as  the  originator  of  all  this 
great  universe  process,  when  we  find  such  intricate 
and  marvellous  coordination  of  conditions  in  the 
process  which  he  initiated,  is  it  possible  to  doubt 
that  he  intended  them  to  be  so, — that  he  designed 
and  purposely  arranged  that  they  should  be  so? 
How  he  did  it, — whether  by  creation  or  selection, — 
science  perhaps  may  not  be  able  to  answer.     But 


TELEOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT  II5 

when  we  see  this  great  universe  process  started  by  a 
being  that  has  at  least  one  of  the  most  fundamental 
features  of  men's  minds,  and  then  see  in  that  process 
a  thousand  adaptations  that  have  every  appearance 
of  being  the  result  of  purpose  and  thought,  it  would 
be  an  extreme  prejudice  that  could  think  of  doubting 
that,  like  man's  mind,  that  being  also  exercised  pur- 
pose and  thought,  that  he  assembled  all  the  con- 
ditions to  produce  just  the  results  he  desired, — that 
this  great  universe  process  is  just  the  progressive 
carrying  out  of  a  designed  purpose  in  the  mind  of 
that  agent,  or  God,  just  as  man's  act  is  but  the 
carrying  out  of  a  purpose. in  his  mind. 

It  is  in  that  sense  that  we  shall  hereafter  consider 
this  great  universe  process,  or  "the  process  of 
evolution."  It  is  all  carried  out  naturally  by  natural 
laws  and  energies,  just  as  every  act  of  man  is  entirely 
produced  by  physical  energies  and  natural  laws. 
But  just  as  the  act  of  the  hands,  feet  or  tongue  is 
really  the  expression  of  the  purpose  in  the  mind  of 
the  man,  just  so  every  result  produced  in  the  evolu- 
tion process,  though  equally  produced  by  physical 
energies  and  natural  laws,  is  really  the  expression  of 
the  purpose  in  the  mind  of  God.  We  can  judge, 
therefore,  of  the  character  and  the  wishes  or  will  of 
God  by  the  character  of  what  He  has  done. 

OTHER  LINES  OF  ADAPTATION  TO  NEEDS 
If  it  is  once  established  that  there  is  a  designing 
mind   behind  all   things   there  will  be  found  very 
many  things  that  can  then  be  recognized  as  beauti- 


Il6  GOD  AND  NATURE 

ful  instances  of  his  design.  To  take  one  instance  : 
The  human  mind  grows  by  exercise,  study,  master- 
ing difficulties.  Now  if  we  were  to  try  to  devise 
some  environment  best  suited  to  draw  out  the  powers 
and  develop  the  human  mind,  we  could  hardly  con- 
ceive of  one  better  adapted  than  this  world  in  which 
we  find  ourselves.  There  is  material  to  call  out  the 
thought  and  interest  of  all  classes,  the  most  simple 
and  the  most  complex  ;  simple  shapes,  sounds  and 
colours  to  keep  the  infant  mind  active,  and  the 
greatest  scholar  still  finds  problems  and  interesting 
intricacies  to  keep  his  mind  ever  struggling  onward. 
If  there  are  marvellous  facilities  in  the  physical 
environment  to  evolve  a  high  grade  of  bodily  struc- 
ture, much  more  marvellous  is  this  adaptation  of  the 
mental  environment  to  evolve  to  the  highest  efficiency 
this  more  important  spiritual  side  of  man. 

We  may  close  this  discussion  of  the  teleological 
argument  with  just  one  more  line  of  thought  which, 
while  not  a  conclusive  proof  of  design  taken  by 
itself,  yet  when  we  have  already  sufficiently  proved 
the  presence  of  a  designer,  adds  an  interesting  in- 
stance of  his  designing  thought. 

Suppose  some  skilled  mechanic  should  find  him- 
self placed  in  some  large  building,  and  suppose  that 
after  a  while  when  he  should  take  a  notion  to  do 
some  nice  piece  of  mechanical  work  he  should  find 
a  suitable  tool  there  to  work  with.  As  he  should  go 
on  to  more  and  more  intricate  work,  requiring  many, 
most  varied  and  most  intricate  tools  and  machinery, 
he  would  always  find  in  some  box  or  drawer  just  the 


TELEO LOGICAL  ARGUMENT  II7 

tool  or  machine  adapted  to  do  that  particular  kind 
of  work.  Would  any  one  be  able  to  persuade  him 
that  it  was  all  merely  a  fortuitous  coincidence,  and 
there  was  no  evidence  of  the  work  of  a  thinking 
mind  there?  He  need  not,  of  course,  suppose  that 
those  tools  and  machines  were  made  purposely  for 
him  to  use,  but  the  very  fact  that  all  those  tools  and 
machines,  just  suited  to  do  the  kind  of  fine  skilled 
work  that  he  could  do,  were  all  there  ready  and  pre- 
pared, would  be  positive  proof  to  him  that  some  one 
had  been  there  before  him  that  had  the  same  knowl- 
edge of  mechanical  arts  that  he  had.  Even  if  he 
found  some  of  those  tools  and  machines  locked  up 
in  drawers  and  boxes  hard  to  open,  or  stored  away 
in  places  where  they  were  very  hard  to  find,  it  would 
not  lessen  at  all  the  certainty  in  his  mind  that  their 
presence  there  was  the  result  of  thought. 

Now  what  are  all  the  inventions  and  scientific  ap- 
pliances with  which  the  world  is  so  full  to-day  but 
tools  and  machines  adapted  to  the  production  of  all 
kinds  of  skilled  work  ?  What  an  enormous  number 
of  such  tools  there  are  which  we  catalogue  under  the 
general  names  of  mechanics,  electricity,  chemical 
affinity,  etc.  Perhaps  at  first  thought  we  say : 
"Those  tools  are  our  inventions,  made  by  us."  But 
not  at  all  so.  We  have  merely  discovered  them. 
All  these  various  powers  and  laws  existed  just  as 
much  before  we  knew  of  them  as  they  do  now.  All 
we  have  done  is  to  discover  them,  open  the  boxes 
and  drawers  in  which  they  were  stored,  and  assemble 
together  the  articulating  parts  to  set  the  machine  in 


Il8  GOD   AND   NATURE 

motion.  Is  it  possible  that  the  one  who  provided  all 
those  tools  and  machines  and  articulating  wheels 
had  less  intelligence  and  less  knowledge  of  me- 
chanical arts  than  we  who  so  belatedly  discover 
them  and  so  clumsily  use  them  ?  We  may  conclude, 
then,  that  the  great  law  of  evolution  has  not  banished 
the  proofs  of  design  from  the  world  but  has  rather 
made  them  stronger  and  more  wonderful  than  before. 
The  whole  course  of  organic  evolution  is  a  process 
of  adapting  means  to  ends  by  living  organisms,  and 
•'  life  "  is  a  great  "  factory  "  whose  origination  re- 
quired far  more  designing  skill  than  the  mere  build- 
ing of  a  body  which  Paley's  argument  proposed. 
Many  of  the  adaptations  in  nature  to  the  desires  of 
man  have  no  genetic  connection  with  his  evolution 
and  are  therefore  significant  coincidences.  And  of 
the  vast  range  of  facts  that  have  aided  his  advance, 
forming  the  environment  that  moulded  his  character, 
we  may  ask,  How  does  it  come  that  with  such  an 
enormous  probability  against  it  there  should  be  such 
a  very  favourable  environment?  There  is  the 
supreme  proof  of  design.  The  whole  universe  and 
every  fact  and  factor  in  it  is  instinct  with  purpose, 
and  is  all  the  intricate  and  perfectly  articulated  de- 
sign of  the  great  infinitely  perfect  mind.  Evolution 
is  but  God  gradually  unfolding  His  great  universe 
thought. 


OTHER  LINES  OF  ARGUMENT 

WHILE  the  arguments  we  have  already  con- 
sidered are  the  main  ones  that  are  most 
commonly  classed  under  "  Natural  The- 
ology," there  are  various  other  considerations  based 
on  various  aspects  of  man's  nature  and  tendencies 
and  the  conditions  of  human  hfe,  that  are  also  sig- 
nificant, and  that  have  special  value  as  showing  the 
character  of  the  designing  "  First  Cause,"  especially 
after  the  fact  of  such  a  designing  first  cause  has 
already  been  established  by  the  other  lines  of  reason- 
ing. 

There  is  not  room  here  to  consider  all  these  at  all 
in  detail,  and  especially  since  for  the  most  part  their 
form  and  validity  have  been  less  affected  by  the  re- 
searches of  modern  science  there  is  less  need  to  do 
so.  Among  them  are  arguments  drawn  from  man's 
conscience,  or  moral  nature,  from  man's  religious 
tendencies,  from  the  general  upward  trend  of  human 
society  and  from  various  other  more  or  less  abstract 
or  sentimental  considerations.  We  may  say  just  a 
word  about  one  or  two  of  them. 

Man  has  a  conscience.  There  is  something  in  his 
nature  that  tends  to  restrain  him  from  doing  certain 
acts  on  the  ground  that  they  are  "  wrong  "  and  to 
urge  him  to  do  certain  other  acts  on  the  ground 

119 


I20  GOD   AND   NATURE 

that  they  are  "  right."  There  is  significance  in  the 
bare  fact  that  he  spontaneously  makes  the  distinction 
of  "  right "  and  "  wrong."  And  there  is  more  signifi- 
cance in  the  fact  that  there  is  within  his  nature  this 
something  that  spontaneously  tends  to  restrain  him 
from  doing  the  thing  that  he  has  classified  as  "wrong," 
merely  and  only  because  it  is  wrong,  though  in  every 
other  respect  he  has  a  distinct  desire  to  do  that 
thing. 

It  has  been  quite  common  to  say  that  this  is  the 
direct  stamp  of  the  authority  of  the  creator  upon  the 
soul  which  he  made.  It  is  the  spontaneous  recog- 
nition by  the  soul  of  a  higher  power  over  it  to 
which  it  is  bound  to  render  obedience.  Since  this 
tendency  is  inborn,  spontaneous  and  universal,  it 
must  represent  a  real  fact.  It  is  a  tendency  to 
recognize  the  authority  of  a  supreme  moral  ruler,  and 
therefore  the  existence  of  such  a  supreme  moral  ruler 
must  be  a  fact. 

Most  scientists  to-day,  however,  are  not  willing  to 
admit  that  this  tendency  cannot  be  explained  as  the 
result  of  purely  natural,  well  understood  causes. 
They  claim  that  it,  like  every  other  tendency  and 
propensity  of  man's  nature,  developed  naturally 
under  the  ordinary  laws  of  evolution  from  the  first 
primordial  life  germ.  But  even  if  we  admit  that  its 
origin  can  be  thus  accounted  for,  that  does  not 
destroy  the  value  of  this  fact  as  an  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  an  intelligent  and  moral  first  cause.  The 
same  question  that  we  asked  so  frequently  in  the 
previous  argument  may  be  asked  here  also.     Even 


OTHER   LINES   OF  ARGUMENT  121 

granting  that  this  idea  of  Tightness  and  wrongness, 
and  this  feeling  of  obUgation  to  do  the  right  and  not 
do  the  wrong  can  all  be  accounted  for  as  the  result 
of  the  natural  laws  of  the  universe,  how  does  it  come 
that  the  universe  happens  to  contain  just  such  a 
collection  of  tendencies  and  laws  as  to  produce  in 
man  this  feature  which  so  immensely  tends  to  make 
him  a  higher  and  nobler  being  ? 

This  question  gains  more  force  when  we  remember 
that  we  have  already  shown  that  the  existence  of 
high  orders  of  living  creatures  on  the  earth  is 
certain  proof  that  there  must  have  been  a  designing 
agency  among  the  causes  that  led  up  to  the  universe 
becoming  what  it  is, — that  the  "  First  Cause  "  must 
have  been  a  being  with  designs  and  purposes,  who 
established  or  directed  forces,  things  and  events 
purposely  to  bring  about  desired  results,  and  that 
the  trend  of  evolution  shows  the  character  and  desires 
of  God.  If  the  appearance  of  the  first  life  germ,  and 
its  development  all  up  the  course  that  culminated  in 
the  splendid  being,  man,  was  not  a  merely  fortuitous 
occurrence  but  a  deliberate  achievement  of  a  design- 
ing and  purposing  being  who  used  appropriate 
means  to  bring  about  the  kind  of  being  that  he 
wished  to  produce,  then  we  can  reason  from  the 
nature  of  the  being  that  has  been  produced  what 
was  the  desire  and  purpose  of  that  designing  "  First 
Cause."  The  fact  that  man  does  possess  a  con- 
science,— the  feeling  of  right  and  wrong,  and  of 
obligation  to  do  right  and  avoid  wrong, — is  proof 
that  his  creator  wished  him  to  have  those  tendencies 


122  GOD   AND   NATURE 

and  took  the  necessary  steps  to/secure  that  he  should 
have  them  ; — in  short  that  his  creator  gave  him 
those  tendencies,  and  therein  stamped  his  own  will 
upon  man's  nature  ;  not  indeed  in  the  crude  method 
of  the  old  "  Carpenter  theory,"  but  in  the  higher, 
more  wonderful  method  in  which  we  are  now  com- 
ing to  perceive  that  all  the  infinitely  articulated 
totality  of  existence  is  the  infinitely  comprehensive 
thought  of  an  infinite  designer. 

Perhaps  we  should  note  an  objection  that  may  be 
urged  at  this  point.  If  all  things  that  exist  show 
the  thought  of  God,  and  the  moral  nature  of  man 
thus  gives  us  teaching  as  to  the  character  of  God, 
it  may  be  urged  that  the  presence  of  wrong  and  sin 
in  the  world  would  then  prove  the  presence  of  sin 
in  God's  character.  But  the  answer  to  this  is  that 
in  the  view  of  science  sin  is  not  a  something  that 
has  been  made  so  much  as  a  remaining  impediment 
in  the  course  of  making  and  an  incompleteness  as 
yet  in  a  progressing  work.  It  is,  so  to  speak,  the 
chips  not  yet  chiselled  out  of  the  statue  being 
formed, — the  astringency  of  the  unripe  fruit.  In- 
deed many  of  the  things  we  call  sins  are  acts  that 
at  some  time  in  the  history  of  development  have 
been,  to  the  progenitors  of  man,  not  wrong  but 
normal  and  acts  that  were  right,  and  necessary  to 
their  highest  progress.  They  are  wrong  now  be- 
cause man  has  advanced  to  a  higher  plane  of  being. 
He  has  taken  upon  himself  a  higher  destiny,  to 
whose  conditions  his  character  has  not  yet  fully 
measured  up. 


OTHER   LINES   OF  ARGUMENT  I23 

He  is,  however,  slowly  and  gradually  reaching 
up  and  approximating  towards  such  a  higher  char- 
acter. And  we  must  remember  that  it  is  the  direc- 
tion 0/ the  progress  and  the  goal  aimed  at  that  shows 
the  character  and  thought  of  the  one  who  planned 
it  all.  It  is  therefore  the  moral  judgments  and 
moral  aspirations  of  men  that  have  significance  as 
showing  the  character  of  his  creator,  not  his  sins 
and  faults  which  are  repugnant  even  to  his  own 
higher  self  and  which  he  is  progressively  striving  to 
eliminate. 

There  is  validity  therefore  in  these  arguments 
from  man's  moral  nature,  as  showing  not  only  the 
presence  of  thought  and  design  in  the  great  "  First 
Cause,"  but  also  as  showing  what  is  the  character 
of  his  thought  and  purposes, — that  it  lacks  nothing 
of  what  we  find  in  our  own  highest  conceptions  of 
right  and  moral  ideals. 

Closely  allied  to  this  argument  from  man's  moral 
nature  is  another  which  is  based  upon  the  universal 
prevalence  among  all  races  of  men  of  belief  in  some 
sort  of  a  being  or  beings  over  them  under  whose 
power  they  are.  Suppose  w^e  here  again  admit  all 
that  is  claimed  by  the  most  thoroughgoing  evolution 
hypothesis  and  consider  this  belief  entirely  the 
product  of  the  evolutionary  process.  In  that  case 
we  are  still  warranted  as  we  have  above  shown  in 
claiming  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  "  First 
Cause,"  which  stands  back  of  and  conducted  the 
evolutionary  process,  to  produce  that  belief  in  the 
creature  that  was  to  be  evolved,  since  that  belief  was 


124  GOD   AND   NATURE 

produced.  And  furthermore  we  are  warranted  in 
taking  as  the  form  of  the  beUef  that  the  creating 
agency  wished  to  have  formed,  not  the  crude  lower 
forms  found  among  savages  but  the  very  highest 
form  of  such  belief  that  has  yet  been  produced.  Now 
we  find  that  the  higher  the  moral  tone  and  the 
more  determined  the  moral  purpose  of  a  community 
or  an  individual,  the  stronger,  as  a  rule,  is  the 
tendency  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  supreme 
being,  and  the  higher  and  nobler  is  the  conception 
of  the  character  of  that  supreme  being.  This  shows 
the  tendency  and  direction  of  the  evolutionary 
process  in  this  respect,  and  that  highest  conception 
of  God  may  therefore  rightly  be  taken  as  the  one, 
or  the  nearest  attained  approximation  to  the  one 
that  the  author  of  the  evolutionary  process  designed 
to  have  produced  in  his  highest  evolved  creatures, 
and  so  may  legitimately  be  taken  as  his  own  thought 
in  that  respect, — that  is  to  say,  as  the  truth  about 
his  own  character. 


PART  II 
Revelation 


I 

DEFINITION 

REVELATION   NATURALLY   FOLLOWS   PROOF  OF 
GOD'S   EXISTENCE 

HAVING  considered  the  evidence  of  the  ex- 
istence of  God  in  the  sphere  of  natural 
theology,  or  "  Reason,"  the  next  in  order 
will  be  the  subject  of  revelation.  The  testimony  of 
revelation  is  more  directly  to  the  will  and  thoughts 
of  God  rather  than  merely  to  His  existence.  Our 
order,  therefore,  is  the  logical  order.  We  first  found 
by  the  argument  from  cause  and  effect  that  there 
must  be  some  other  great  agency  operative  in  the 
universe  besides  the  known  mechanical  energies  and 
laws.  This  was  the  first  step  and  foundation.  Pro- 
ceeding, we  showed  by  an  extension  of  that  same 
line  of  argument,  that  that  "  other  great  agency " 
did  what  is  done  on  a  small  scale  by  the  spirit  or  life 
principle  of  man,  and  it  was  therefore  fair  to  suppose 
that  it  had  all  the  powers  that  man's  spirit  has. 
Next  by  the  cosmological  argument,  and  especially 
by  the  teleological  arguments,  we  corroborated  this 
supposition,  and  showed  that  there  has  actually  been 
done,  in  the  establishing  and  developing  of  the  uni- 
verse, most  of  the  acts  that  are  characteristic  of  man's 
highest   mental   activity.     First  there   is   what  our 

127 


128  REVELATION 

minds  recognize  as  a  distinctly  concatenated  order  in 
all  things.  Next  we  see  in  a  number  of  different 
lines  there  have  been  very  high  results  produced  by 
the  cooperation  of  a  very  large  number  of  forces  and 
conditions  of  such  a  nature  that  the  change  or  lack 
of  one  would  render  the  high  result  impossible,  and 
so  there  was  an  enormous  proportion  of  improba- 
bility that  the  high  result  could  be  produced  unless 
these  forces  and  conditions  had  been  purposely 
coordinated  to  produce  that  very  result.  In  this 
way  we  saw  proof  not  only  of  the  purposing  or 
thinking  power  of  the  great  "  First  Cause,"  but  from 
the  nature  of  the  objects  which  thus  are  shown  to 
be  the  desired  aim  which  he  planned  we  see  evi- 
dence that  his  desires  run  along  the  line  of  what  we 
also  consider  to  be  the  highest  and  best  things,  and 
so  there  is  a  similarity  in  his  nature  to  our  highest 
selves.  Finally,  by  the  "  moral  argument,"  "  relig- 
ious argument,"  etc.,  we  saw  indications  that  his  will 
includes  desires  for  our  guidance  into  certain  lines 
of  conduct  and  a  certain  relation  of  obedience  from 
us  towards  him. 

Having  gone  thus  far  by  reason  and  the  evidence 
of  natural  religion  in  discovering  the  character  and 
will  of  God,  it  is  manifestly  the  next  logical  step  to 
see  if  there  is  anywhere  any  definite,  personal  dec- 
laration from  Him  to  us  of  thoughts  with  regard  to 
us,  and  if  so  what  it  is.  In  other  words,  the  next 
necessary  inquiry  is  the  question  of  "  revelation." 

In  considering  the  question  of  revelation  there  are 
four  important  inquiries  that  we  must  make,  or  four 


DEFINITION  129 

principal  divisions  of  the  subject.  First :  The  mean- 
ing of  revelation.  Second :  The  fact  of  revelation. 
Third  :  The  manner  of  revelation.  Fourth :  The 
content  of  the  revelation. 

MEANING   OF  THE  TERM   "REVELATION" 

Among  writers  on  this  subject  there  seems  to  be  a 
great  deal  of  inexcusable  indefiniteness  in  the  use  of 
this  term  "  revelation."  In  the  older  theology  it  was 
considered  that  the  Bible  was  the  "  Word  of  God  " 
and  its  text  and  phraseology  were  what  He  defi- 
nitely wished  and  procured  to  have  set  before  men 
as  a  communication  from  Himself,  just  as  the  books 
of  Shakespeare  or  Spencer  are  from  those  individ- 
uals. It  was  under  this  conception  that  the  Bible 
attained  the  place  of  preeminent  honour  and  au- 
thority in  religious  minds.  And  as  though  corrob- 
orating this  there  is  seen  the  enormous  influence  for 
good  which  the  Bible  has  exerted  in  the  world. 

The  opinion  of  some  modern  writers  on  the  sub- 
ject is  almost  the  opposite  of  the  above,  and  yet  they 
still  choose  to  retain  the  old  term  and  call  the  Bible 
a  revelation.  Its  origin  and  genesis  is  entirely  the 
human  mind  groping  after  the  light.  It  is  full  of 
errors  both  of  fact  and  teaching  and  comes  with  no 
other  outward  authority  than  the  reliability  and  wis- 
dom of  the  men  that  wrote  it,  and  yet  since  there  is 
much  in  it  that  is  conceded  to  be  true  teaching  about 
God,  it  is  still  accorded  the  title  of  a  "  revelation  " 
of  God. 

Of  course  it  is  possible  to  so  define  the  word  that 


I30  REVELATION 

anything  that  reveals  anything  about  God  may  be 
called  a  revelation  of  God.  His  providence  reveals 
His  character  and  what  we  may  expect  of  Him.  The 
wonders  of  nature  reveal  His  power  and  wisdom. 
In  fact,  since  He  is  the  author  and  creator  of 
everything  that  exists,  everything  that  exists  is  in 
some  degree  a  revelation  of  God.  By  thus  widen- 
ing the  definition  we  really  deprive  it  of  any  real 
value.  If  everything  that  exists  is  a  revelation  of 
God  there  is  no  object  in  calling  a  certain  book  a 
"  revelation  of  God." 

It  will  be  useful  in  the  interests  of  clearness  of 
thought  to  analyze  the  various  ways  in  which  knowl- 
edge can  be  conveyed  or  a  "  revelation  "  made.  In 
the  first  place  we  may  divide  into  two  great  divisions, 
"  Unintentional,"  and  "  Intentional."  The  apple  fall- 
ing conveyed  knowledge  to  Newton,  and  the  jump- 
ing teakettle  lid  did  so  to  Watt.  But  they  both  did 
it  unintentionally.  The  opening  of  the  buds  in  the 
apple  tree  and  the  crying  of  a  new-born  babe  both 
convey  information,  but  it  is  entirely  without  purpose 
or  intention  on  their  part  to  convey  it.  Not  so  the 
crying  of  that  same  infant  a  year  later.  There  is 
then  present  a  very  definite  intention  to  convey  some 
information.  The  same  is  true  of  all  speaking,  writ- 
ing, and  signalling,  of  physical  or  chemical  demon- 
strations and  mechanical  instruction  of  all  kinds. 

But  this  latter  division  of  "  intentional  communica- 
tion" may  also  be  divided  into  two  classes:  (i) 
If  I  have  a  wish  or  intention  to  convey  to  you  some 
thought  in  my  mind  I  may  do  it  by  exhibiting  to  you 


DEFINITION  131 

some  article,  act  or  process  with  the  hope  that  you 
will  infer  from  it  the  thought  I  have  in  mind,  or  (2) 
we  may  have  a  prearranged  system  of  symbols  or 
some  other  device  to  represent  all  various  kinds  of 
thoughts  and  by  that  means  I  may  convey  directly 
and  exactly  the  thought  in  my  mind  to  you.  I  have 
a  piece  of  iron  and  I  wish  to  convey  to  you  the 
knowledge  that  it  is  cold,  is  black  or  is  heavy.  I 
may  touch  it  to  your  skin,  hold  it  before  your  eyes 
or  place  it  in  your  hand  with  the  hope  that  you  will 
thereby  notice  this  fact  that  I  wish  you  to  know.  Or 
I  may  use  a  set  of  prearranged  symbols, — namely  the 
words  of  our  language, — and  convey  to  you  directly 
and  exactly  the  thought  in  my  own  mind  which  I 
wish  to  convey.  Or  if  it  be  proved  that  man  has  the 
power  of  conveying  thoughts  directly  and  imme- 
diately by  the  process  commonly  called  "  telepathy," 
that  will  constitute  an  interesting  variety  of  this  sec- 
ond division  or  way. 

There  is  still  another  grade  or  kind  of  revelation 
that  would  properly  be  classed  in  this  second  division. 
It  is  more  properly  called  "  inspiration,"  perhaps. 
A  writer  is  supposed  to  use  all  his  own  faculties  and 
natural  resources  in  the  acquiring  of  truth,  but  at  the 
same  time  God  both  guides  and  aids  him  so  that  he 
discovers  and  proclaims  certain  truths  that  God  wants 
proclaimed,  and,  in  addition,  when  he  has  published 
his  message  God,  in  some  way,  adds  His  indorse- 
ment, so  to  speak,  or  confirms  the  message  as  ex- 
pressing His  own  mind.  It  is  just  the  same  as  when 
a  business  man  orders  his  secretary  to  write  certain 


132  REVELATION 

letters,  furnishing  him  facilities,  information  and  more 
or  less  direction,  and  afterwards  reads  over  what  he 
has  written  and  signs  it.  Such  a  letter  is  rightly 
called  a  communication  from  that  business  man.  It 
is  the  authoritative  expression  of  his  thoughts,  though 
all  studied  out  and  composed  by  the  secretary. 
Perhaps  the  greater  part  of  what  we  call  "  revela- 
tion "  in  the  Bible  is  conceived  to  be  of  this  charac- 
ter. In  just  the  same  sense  it  is  an  authoritative 
expression  of  God's  thoughts,  and  so  a  "  revelation." 
There  are  many  cases,  however,  where  the  com- 
munication is  made  more  directly  by  God,  and  these 
we  will  consider  first  and  specially. 

Now  if  we  are  to  use  the  word  "  revelation  "  with 
any  distinctive  meaning  we  must  exclude  from  it  all 
knowledge  conveyed  in  the  first  way  above,  that  is, 
unintentionally  and  merely  by  the  things  or  acts 
themselves.  That  is  precisely  what  is  considered  in 
"  Natural  Theology,"  and  if  we  are  to  make  a  sep- 
arate division  under  the  title  of  "  revelation,"  w^e 
must  mean  something  else  by  it.  At  least  we  will 
use  the  term  so  here,  limiting  it  to  knowledge  inten- 
tionally conveyed. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  make  a  still  further  restric- 
tion, with  regard  to  knowledge  intentionally  con- 
veyed, but  conveyed  by  means  of  the  things  or  acts 
themselves.  In  the  case  of  God  it  would  be  difficult 
to  discriminate  when  the  act  was  done  to  teach  some 
truth,  and  when  the  truth  taught  was  unintentionally 
conveyed.  Unlike  the  case  of  a  school-teacher  or 
demonstrator,    we    can   hardly   conceive   that   God 


DEFINITION  133 

would  very  often  perform  an  act  merely  and  only  as 
a  demonstration  to  exhibit  a  principle.  He  would 
rather  exhibit  the  ordinary  acts  of  nature  and  provi- 
dence in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  men  to  perceive  and 
ponder  the  thoughts  they  convey.  Moreover,  on  the 
other  hand,  every  act  of  nature  and  providence  is 
adapted  to  convey  some  thought  of  some  kind.  If 
God  is  really  omniscient  there  can  be  no  such  thing 
as  unintentional  conveying  of  knowledge  by  Him. 
In  as  far,  then,  as  any  act  of  nature  or  providence  or 
anything  of  God's  creation  conveys  any  true  thought 
to  any  man  we  may  say  that  it  was  God's  intention 
that  that  thing  should  convey  that  thought  to  him. 

It  will  be  proper  then  to  exclude  from  the  use  of 
the  term  "  revelation "  all  knowledge  conveyed 
merely  by  the  things  or  acts  themselves,  except  in 
cases  where  God,  for  instance,  through  a  prophet  or 
inspired  writer,  specially  holds  up  those  acts  or  facts 
to  view  or  calls  attention  to  them  as  teaching  a 
lesson 

HAS  GOD  EVER  MADE  SUCH  A  REVELATION 
So  much  then  for  the  definition  of  revelation.  The 
next  question  is  as  to  the  fact  of  revelation.  With 
the  definition  and  restriction  of  the  term  made  above, 
has  God  ever  made  a  "  revelation  "  ?  Has  He  ever 
intentionally  and  directly  conveyed  His  thoughts  as 
thoughts  to  a  man  ?  Has  any  man  ever  received  a 
communication  from  God  in  the  same  sense  as  he 
receives  communications  from  other  men  ?  There  is 
the  real  problem  of  "  revelation."     It  does  not  lie  in 


134  REVELATION 

the  questions  about  the  evolution  of  religious  belief 
or  the  construction  and  origin  of  the  Biblical  text,  or 
matters  of  that  character.  Those  are  questions  that 
have  their  importance,  but  this  is  an  entirely  distinct 
question.  It  is  a  question  much  more  fundamental, 
and  we  may  believe  very  much  more  important  than 
any  of  those  others.  The  crucial  point  is  that  God 
has  a  certain  specific  thought,  wishes  some  man  to 
receive  that  thought,  and  takes  appropriate  means 
to  communicate  it  to  him.  Perhaps  in  most  cases 
we  might  add  that  he  would  not  have  received  the 
thought  if  God  had  not  thus  communicated  it  to  him, 
and  that  he  receives  it  in  such  a  way  that  he  recog- 
nizes it  as  communicated  by  God  and  carrying  God's 
authority. 

It  is  very  important  to  focus  the  attention  on  this 
one  question.  If  God  has  never  in  such  a  sense 
made  communications  to  any  man  then  the  main 
basis  of  all  our  religious  beliefs  is  false.  It  certainly 
is  a  fact  that  the  Christian  world  to-day  has  gained 
almost  all  its  conceptions  of  God  and  eternal  life 
through  believing  that  the  Bible  is  a  revelation  from 
God  in  just  that  sense.  If  it  is  not  that  does  not 
necessarily  mean,  indeed,  that  we  must  entirely  give 
up  our  belief  in  such  a  God  and  heavenly  Father  as 
we  have  hitherto  trusted  in.  It  does,  however, 
destroy  the  evidence  which  we  have  hitherto  trusted 
in  as  evidence  of  His  existence  and  it  does  make 
necessary  an  entirely  different  attitude  towards 
religion  and  a  radically  different  basis  for  our 
religious  belief,  if  we  keep  it. 


DEFINITION  135 

If  on  the  other  hand  it  is  definitely  decided  that 
God  has  made  such  personal  communications  to 
men,  all  the  problems  as  to  the  inspiration  and 
interpretation  of  the  Bible  will  be  very  much  more 
easily  resolved,  for  very  much  of  the  difficulty  in 
Bible  interpretation  comes  from  the  effort,  conscious 
or  unconscious,  to  eliminate,  or  at  least  minimize 
the  so-called  *'  supernatural "  in  the  book,  that  is,  to 
recognize  as  true  nothing,  or  at  least  as  little  as 
possible,  that  could  not  have  been  produced  by  the 
natural  processes  of  man's  mind.  If  it  is  once  fully 
decided  that  God  has  made  such  communications 
and  that  they  are  to  be  looked  for  and  expected  as 
normal,  then  many  things  can  plausibly  be  accepted 
just  in  the  form  in  which  they  are  given,  whose 
recasting  or  explaining  has  furnished  the  great  tasks 
to  the  critics. 

There  is  possible  an  intermediate  conception,  that 
God  has  made  communications  to  men  but  they 
have  always  been  of  the  most  rudimentary  charac- 
ter. He  has  at  times  used  direct  means  to  get  men 
to  think  certain  thoughts  that  are  in  his  mind,  but  it 
has  only  been  by  exerting  the  minutest  and  almost 
imperceptible  influence  upon  the  natural  current  of 
their  thoughts,  reasoning  and  perceiving  in  the 
natural  way.  It  is  in  favour  of  this  view  that  most 
Christians  believe  they  can  receive  some  such  sort 
and  measure  of  divine  communication  at  the  present 
time.  According  to  this  conception  the  attempt  is 
made  to  account  for  a  real  communication  from  God 
given   in    the    Bible   on   the   basis  of    only  such  a 


136  REVELATION 

measure  and  kind  of  communication  from  God  as 
men  are  constandy  receiving  at  the  present  time. 

Perhaps  the  views  of  most  Christians  would  be 
divided  between  these  last  two  conceptions,  the 
former  being  the  traditional  view  and  the  latter  the 
view  of  the  moderately  rationalistic  school.  As  to 
this  latter  view  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  it 
necessitates  an  entire  reconstruction  of  our  attitude 
towards  religion  and  a  different  conception  of  the 
basis  of  religious  behef,  almost  as  much  as  the  view 
that  there  is  no  real  revelation  as  stated  above. 
Both  views  hold  alike  that  there  is  no  higher  tribu- 
nal in  religious  belief  than  the  present  processes  of 
our  thoughts  and  experience,  the  only  difference 
being  that  the  last  view  holds  that  this  "present 
process  of  our  thoughts  "  has  a  divine  element  in  it. 

As  to  this  last  view,  too,  it  may  be  said  that  it  is 
theoretically  unsatisfactory.  If  God  intentionally 
communicates  His  thoughts  as  thoughts  to  men  at 
all  it  requires  some  explanation  why  He  should 
always  communicate  them  in  infinitesimal  quanti- 
ties and  never  with  the  full  force  to  produce  assured 
conviction,  as  one  man  does  with  another.  Of  course 
it  is  conceivable  that  in  an  age  when  the  chief  task 
of  the  world  is  to  study  as  fully  as  possible  the 
systematized  operations  of  power  that  we  call  nature 
the  divine  mind  might  deem  it  best  not  to  make  any 
revelations  in  a  form  that  would  interfere  with  or 
detract  interest  from  the  full  pursuit  of  that  study, 
but  to  say  that  in  all  the  ages  when  that  reason  did 
not  exist  and  especially  when  the  "  new  creations  " 


DEFINITION  137 

of  the  foundations  of  religious  belief  and  moral 
practice  were  being  first  formed,  God  then  also, 
though  fully  committed  to  the  principle  of  making 
revelations,  still  always  confined  His  revelations  to 
the  infinitesimal  and  the  comparatively  unperceived 
form  this  view  proposes,  is  quite  another  question. 

It  is  true  that  in  any  case  the  question,  whether 
revelation  has  been  made  and  what  kind  and  degree 
of  revelation,  is  a  question  of  historic  fact  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  ordinary  process  of  historic  evidence  ; 
still,  since  it  is  made  by  many  critics  one  of  the 
canons  of  that  historic  evidence  that  there  is  a 
presumption  against  an  efficient,  fully  perceived 
revelation  from  God  and  the  very  fact  that  a  given 
body  of  evidence  affirms  the  existence  of  such  a 
revelation  throws  suspicion  on  the  validity  of  that 
body  of  evidence,  it  is  of  some  importance  to  recog- 
nize that  there  is  no  more  presumption  against  that 
view  than  against  the  view  that  supposes  a  mild, 
disguised  and  infinitesimal  revelation  from  God  such 
as  is  going  on  now  in  all  our  earnest  religious 
thoughts.  If  belief  in  the  latter  is  plausible  belief  in 
the  former  is  equally,  or  indeed  far  more  logically, 
plausible.  Indeed  such  faint,  unnoticed  communica- 
tions from  God  could  only  be  made  for  the  informa- 
tion they  imparted,  and  so  would  be  "Special  inter- 
positions to  supply  a  lack,"  a  thing  very  repugnant 
to  evolutional  thought,  whereas  a  clearly  evidenced 
form  of  revelation  has  a  necessary  place  in  the  evo- 
lution scheme,  as  we  shall  see  later. 


II 

SCIENCE  AND  REVELATION 

SCIENCE   DOES   NOT   DECLARE  AGAINST  A 
REVELATION 

AS  our  discussion  is  from  the  view-point  of 
recent  science,  tlie  question  is:  What  has 
science  to  contribute  to  the  inquiry  ?  We 
must  answer  that  its  contribution  must  be  chiefly 
negative  in  form.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  it  can- 
not be  expected  to  contribute  much  that  is  positive. 
The  most  it  can  be  expected  to  do  is  to  declare 
whether  such  a  thing  as  a  divine  revelation  is  scien- 
tifically possible  and  probable,  or  if  there  are  scien- 
tific reasons  for  believing  that  such  a  revelation  has 
not  been  or  could  not  be  made.  It  is  a  matter  of 
alleged  historic  fact  to  be  studied  by  means  of 
historic  evidence  and  the  dicta  of  science  can  only 
be  of  a  supplementary  or  negative  character. 

For  instance,  suppose  we  find  in  a  certain  historical 
document  the  statements  that  in  a  given  country 
water  spontaneously  ran  up-hill  and  down-hill  in- 
differently, that  on  a  certain  date  the  face  of  the  sun 
became  black,  and  that  people  in  that  country  a 
hundred  miles  apart  could  converse  with  each  other. 
Science  could  be  called  in  to  give  some  evidence  on 
all  these  questions.  As  to  the  first  case,  of  the  water 
running  up-hill,  while  science  never  can  declare  any- 

138 


SCIENCE   AND   REVELATION  1 39 

thing  to  be  actually  impossible  yet  it  would  declare 
it  to  be  so  exceedingly  improbable  that  it  must  be 
disbelieved.  As  to  the  second,  it  would  declare  that 
though  an  unusual  appearance  yet  such  occurrences 
were  well  known  and  so  if  the  evidence  for  it  was 
normal  it  should  be  believed.  As  to  the  last  proposi- 
tion the  situation  would  be  peculiar,  for  while  science 
would  declare  that  such  a  thing  was  quite  possible  and 
easy,  yet  if  the  time  in  question  was  somewhat  remote, 
there  would  emerge  the  question  whether  there  was 
any  one  at  that  time  living  that  knew  the  process  and 
had  the  necessary  apparatus.  If  that  only  were  es- 
tablished then  science  would  declare  that  there  was  no 
presumption  against  it  and  if  there  was  merely  the 
normal  weight  of  evidence  for  it,  it  should  be  believed. 

As  getting  a  revelation  from  God  is  something  of  the 
nature  of  the  so-called  "  supernatural,"  that  is  to  say, 
a  thing  that  the  ordinary  people  of  any  country  and 
age  could  not  do,  the  analogy  is  close  with  the  last 
supposition  above.  And  the  answer  of  science  must 
be  of  the  same  nature,  namely,  that  if  there  was 
present  some  one  who  had  the  knowledge  and  the 
power  to  do  such  a  thing  then  there  is  no  presump- 
tion against  it  and  if  there  was  merely  the  normal 
weight  of  evidence  for  it  that  would  be  sufficient  in 
other  common  events,  it  should  be  believed. 

As  to  the  moral  objection,  that  it  is  improbable  that 
God  would  depart  from  the  orderly  methods  of  His 
regular  working  to  do  a  special  and  irregular  act, 
that  is  begging  the  whole  question,  for  by  supposi- 
tion it  is  only  in  that  it  is  special  that  it  has  any  use 


I40  REVELATION 

at  all,  for  it  is  an  act  whose  whole  design  is  by  its 
specialness  to  give  evidence  of  a  personal  being's  pres- 
ence and  activity  as  we  shall  later  more  fully  set  forth. 

The  testimony  of  science,  as  far  as  it  is  competent 
to  testify  at  all,  is  not  adverse  to  the  reality  of  a  reve- 
lation from  God,  taking  the  word  revelation  in  the 
strictest  sense  defined  above,  namely,  the  communi- 
cating of  thoughts  as  thoughts  directly  from  God  to 
man,  the  communicating  and  receiving  of  thoughts 
between  God  and  man  in  as  real  a  sense  and  degree 
as  when  one  man  talks  or  writes  to  another  and 
conveys  the  thoughts  in  his  mind  to  him. 

For  notice  that  we  have  already  proved  by  the 
various  arguments  of  natural  theology  that  the 
great  "  First  Cause  "  is  a  being  that  is  capable  of 
having  thoughts  and  does  have  practically  all  the 
mental  apparatus  that  we  have,  and  moreover  that 
he  seems  to  have  specific  thoughts  and  desires  with 
regard  to  men's  acts  and  character.  This  being  so, 
not  only  is  there  no  presumption  against  such  a 
communicating  of  his  thoughts  and  wishes  b}'  God 
to  man,  but  there  is  a  definite  presumption  in  favour 
of  its  being  done,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  under- 
stand why  it  should  never  be  done,  only  provided 
there  were  any  occasion  where  such  a  communica- 
tion of  thoughts  would  be  profitable. 

THE   EVOLUTION   PROCESS   CALLS   FOR  A 
REVELATION 
Really  it  is  this  last  consideration  that  affords  the 
only  plausible  ground  to  claim  that  a  communica- 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  I4I 

tion  of  thoughts  directly  by  God  to  men  is  improb- 
able. The  objection  grows  out  of  the  desire  to 
interpret  all  things  on  a  strictly  evolutional  basis. 
The  last  stand  of  conservative  thought  in  opposition 
to  the  evolution  hypothesis  was  on  the  ground  of 
"special  divine  interpositions"  to  supplement  the 
general  operations  of  evolution.  The  stricter  evolu- 
tional thought  claims  that  any  such  special  interpo- 
sitions are  not  only  unnecessary  but  are  entirely 
illogical.  But  in  making  this  claim  they  are  misled 
into  the  error  of  supposing  that  that  necessarily  ex- 
cludes all  observable  divine  activity  of  a  personal 
nature.  The  mistake  lies  in  assuming  that  a  per- 
sonal act  by  God  must  necessarily  be  classed  as  a 
"  special  interposition." 

The  theistic  evolutionists  hold  just  as  thoroughly 
as  any  one  to  the  validity  of  all  evolutionary  proc- 
esses, only  they  claim  that  the  designing  and  direct- 
ing power  behind  and  in  it  all  is  the  divine  activity. 
The  divine  activity  is  not  an  interruption  occasion- 
ally interposed  but  is  the  thing  itself.  Evolution 
is  the  systematic,  continuous  operating  of  divine 
activity  as  truly  as  all  my  bodily  acts,  though  purely 
mechanical  processes,  are  the  acts  of  me,  a  directing 
spirit.  That  this  is  the  true  conception,  all  the  argu- 
ments given  above  under  the  subject  of  "  God  in 
Nature  "  go  to  prove. 

This  being  so  we  may  readily  concede  that  there 
will  be  no  acts  of  God  of  a  personal  nature  manifested 
in  the  evolution  of  the  mechanical  and  physical 
world,  and  even  of  the  lower  forms  of  life.     Indeed 


142  REVELATION 

it  is  logically  hardly  conceivable  that  there  should 
be  such  personal  acts  in  that  sphere.  They  would 
not  be  appropriate.  There  would  be  no  ground  for 
them.  But  that  does  not  at  all  imply  that  there  will 
not  be  any  personal  acts  anywhere  in  the  scheme  of 
evolution.  The  divine  activity  naturally  acts  on 
each  thing  in  accordance  with  its  character.  In  the 
purely  mechanical  and  physical  sphere  it  appears  as 
the  wonderful  articulation  of  sequences  which  we 
call  "  Natural  Law."  In  the  sphere  of  life  it  appears 
as  the  mould  into  which  the  life  tendencies  run  and 
the  directing,  coordinating  design  which  makes  pos- 
sible the  path  of  organic  evolution.  When  we 
come  then  to  the  sphere  of  personality, — self-con- 
scious, reasoning,  intelligent  humanity, — we  naturally 
look  for  divine  activity  of  a  personal  nature.  Instead 
of  such  personal  communications  being  a  violation 
of  evolutionary  process  they  are  strictly  demanded 
by  it.  It  would  be  a  "  break  in  the  continuity  and 
uniformity  of  nature,"  if  there  were  not  some  such 
personal  relations  towards  the  emerging  personal 
being  whose  nature  is  fitted  to  receive  them  and 
calls  for  them.  Instead  of  personal  communications 
being  improbable  or  inappropriate  the  evolution 
hypothesis  itself  calls  for  them  to  complete  its 
system. 

For  notice  that  it  is  not  merely  as  a  device  to 
convey  knowledge  that  could  not  otherwise  be 
obtained  that  such  personal  communications  are 
called  for.  Logically  that  is  only  a  secondary  of 
accidental  effect,  and  we  might  concede  that  in  the 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  I43 

evolution  scheme  it  has  no  place  at  all.  A  com- 
munication from  God  merely  to  convey  knowledge 
that  was  not  otherwise  attainable,  or  that  some 
moral  crisis  demanded  before  the  race  had  time  to 
acquire  it  by  other  methods,  however  appropriate 
from  a  utilitarian  point  of  view,  yet  savours  so  much 
of  a  "  special  interposition "  and  a  defect  in  the 
whole  scheme,  as  to  be  distasteful  to  evolutional  logic. 

The  real  significant  fact  that  we  have  to  take  ac- 
count of,  however,  is  as  follows  :  In  the  course  of 
evolution  there  has  emerged  a  being  of  such  a  char- 
acter as  to  be  capable  of  personal  relations  with  the 
great  being  who  is  the  first  cause,  or  God,  and  not 
only  so  but  there  are  strong  indications  that  God 
wishes  this  being  to  carry  on  such  personal  relations 
with  Himself.  By  personal  relations  we  mean  such 
relations  as  one  personal,  intelligent  being  naturally 
has  with  another,  as  for  instance  one  man  with  an- 
other. But  the  very  essence  of  such  personal  rela- 
tions in  their  highest  form  is  the  mutual  intercom- 
munication of  thoughts.  Only  by  that  means  can 
there  be  the  highest  state  and  feeling  of  companion- 
ship. 

If  God  has  made  man  capable  of  that  kind  of 
personal  relation,  and  desires  and  expects  it  of  him, 
we  can  hardly  conceive  of  His  not  affording  the  basis 
for  such  personal  relation  and  feeling,  by  Himself 
making  personal  communications  to  man,  that  being 
the  only  way  in  which  it  could  be  afforded.  Not  to 
do  so  would  be  as  illogical  as  to  expect  fishes  to 
swim  and  not  furnish  any  water  for  them  to  swim 


144  REVELATION 

in,  or  expect  planets  to  revolve  and  not  furnish  them 
with  any  attracting  force  to  bend  their  paths  to  a 
revolution.  For  God  to  communicate  with  the 
evolving  being  as  soon  as  he  has  evolved  high 
enough  to  be  capable  of  being  intelligently  com- 
municated with  is  as  logically  appropriate  as  for  life 
to  appear  on  the  globe  as  soon  as  the  temperature 
and  other  conditions  were  suitable  to  sustain  it,  or 
for  all  the  conditions  and  appliances  for  a  high  grade 
of  life  to  be  furnished  when  life  did  appear.  It  is 
simply  the  perfection  of  the  great  universe  plan 
which  provides  everything  that  the  highest  use  and 
highest  development  of  any  of  the  parts  calls  for. 

We  may  conclude,  then,  from  the  scientific  point 
of  view,  that  not  only  is  a  revelation,  or  personal 
direct  communication  of  thoughts  by  God  to  men, 
not  a  violation  of  the  uniformity  of  nature,  but  it  is 
distinctly  called  for  by  that  uniformity.  We  may 
expect  it  to  be  of  the  nature  and  degree  suited  to 
produce  the  best  results,  but  subject  to  that  condi- 
tion there  is  no  more  reason  to  suppose  it  will  be  of 
the  quiet  and  inconspicuous  character  of  the  divine 
guidance  Christians  believe  they  commonly  receive 
now,  than  that  it  will  be  with  the  most  evident  and 
convincing  objectivity  of  a  "  theophany "  or  an 
audible  voice  from  the  sky. 

To  produce  the  best  results  we  may  suppose  that 
it  will  ordinarily  be  given  in  such  a  way  as  to  inter- 
fere the  least  possible  with  the  incentives  to  use  our 
own  mental  powers  for  the  search  after  truth.  At 
the  same  time,  since  the  main  purpose  in  communi- 


SCIENCE   AND   REVELATION  I45 

eating  at  all  is  to  so  reveal  Himself  in  a  position  of 
fellowship  as  to  produce  in  nian  a  similar  feeling 
of  fellowship,  the  communications,  at  least  some- 
times, must  be  of  such  a  nature  that  they  are  cer- 
tainly known  to  be  divine  communications,  and  it 
would  be  specially  appropriate  if  in  those  undoubt- 
able  and  fully  accredited  communications  or  revela- 
tions there  were  given  to  us  definitely  from  God 
the  knowledge  that  He  would  continuously  in  our 
common  life  be  giving  us  the  other  kind  of  quiet, 
unperceived  yet  real  revelations  or  acts  of  guidance. 
In  other  words,  if  we  had  prophets  and  apostles 
receiving  in  the  fuller  way  the  Word  of  God  and  the 
divine  Christ  bodying  Him  forth  in  human  shape, 
and  these  giving  us  the  promise  that  He  will  dwell 
in  us  by  His  Spirit,  "  guiding  us  into  all  truth,"  and 
that  He  will  hear  and  answer  when  we  pray  to  Him. 
Such  a  scheme  would  agree  perfectly  with  what 
science  would  deem  a  suitable  way  for  God  to  make 
revelations  or  communications  to  men.  It  would 
yield  the  minimum  of  interference  with  the  spirit  of 
research,  and  at  the  same  time  it  would  fully  achieve 
the  main  object  which  science  could  admit  as  a  suit- 
able object  for  making  communications,  namely,  to 
make  possible  a  feeling  of  fellowship  on  the  part  of 
men  towards  God. 

METHOD   OF   REVELATION 
The   next   division  in  order  is  "  The  Method  of 
Revelation."     We    have    already   discussed    under 
"  Definition   of   Revelation "  somewhat   in   a  theo- 


146  REVELATION 

retical  way  the  different  possible  ways  of  making  a 
revelation.  We  may  here  consider  the  matter  more 
in  a  concrete  form.  There  is  a  book,  the  Bible,  that 
is  considered  to  be  a  revelation  from  God,  or  at  least 
to  contain  records  of  such  revelations.  We  may 
take  up  the  question  of  how  those  revelations  are 
alleged  to  have  been  made  or  how  the  persons  con- 
cerned are  supposed  to  have  received  communica- 
tions from  God. 

In  making  this  inquiry  we  shall  take  the  records 
as  they  stand,  without  attempting  to  determine  the 
question  of  their  truth  and  reliability.  The  result  of 
this  inquiry,  however,  will  have  an  important  bear- 
ing on  that  question  of  the  truth  of  the  records.  For 
instance,  if  the  way  in  which  it  is  alleged  that  a 
direct  communication  from  God  was  received  is 
a  way  in  which  it  is  highly  improbable  that  God 
would  make  a  revelation,  or  if  the  fact  which  the 
person  concerned  thought  was  a  revelation  can  be 
proved  to  have  been  something  else  arising  from 
another  cause,  that  will  have  great  weight  in  deter- 
mining whether  or  not  a  revelation  was  given,  and 
incidentally  whether  the  narrative  itself  is  trust- 
worthy. If  on  the  other  hand  we  find  that  the  way 
in  which  the  communication  is  alleged  to  have  been 
made  is  just  the  way  that,  according  to  our  latest 
knowledge,  it  is  most  probable  such  a  communica- 
tion would  be  made  if  it  were  to  be  made,  that,  too, 
will  have  great  influence  upon  our  estimate  of  the 
reliability  of  the  record. 

We  may  call  attention  again  to  a  caution  already 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  I47 

referred  to.  The  fact  that  a  given  phenomenon 
could  be  produced  or  accounted  for  in  some  other 
way  than  that  proposed  by  our  theory  does  not 
necessarily  prove  that  it  was  produced  in  that  way 
or  prove  that  it  was  not  produced  in  the  way  pro- 
posed by  our  theory.  For  instance,  a  doctor  sees 
certain  skin  eruptions  on  a  patient.  He  knows  that 
exactly  the  same  appearing  eruptions  could  be  pro- 
duced by  heat  or  the  chafing  of  the  clothing.  But 
he  may  not  therefore  conclude  that  it  certainly  is 
not  a  case  of  measles,  but  is  certainly  caused  by 
simple  heat  or  friction.  True,  he  would  not  diagnose 
it  as  measles  from  that  only  without  other  reasons, 
but  seeing  that  only  he  might  say  it  was  possible  or 
even  probable  that  the  person  had  the  measles,  if 
there  was  considerable  likelihood  of  that  person 
contracting  that  disease  at  that  time.  Other  addi- 
tional evidence  might  fully  establish  the  fact  that  it 
was  a  case  of  measles. 

Just  so,  when  we  read  the  record  of  some  one  re- 
ceiving what  he  has  supposed  to  be  a  revelation 
from  God,  even  supposing  all  the  signs  or  experi- 
ences detailed  in  the  record  are  known  to  have  been 
at  times  experienced  by  persons  through  other  causes 
without  a  revelation  from  God,  that  does  not  neces- 
sarily prove  that  in  this  case  this  person  was  not 
really  receiving  a  revelation  from  God  just  as  he 
supposed  he  was.  True,  we  cannot  be  convinced 
that  it  certainly  was  a  revelation,  without  other  evi- 
dence, but  the  fact  that  all  the  signs  recorded  might 
have  been  produced  by  other  causes  does  not  prove 


148  REVELATION 

that  they  were  not  produced  by  this  cause,  namely, 
God  giving  a  revelation. 

For  instance :  A  certain  person  has  a  vision  and 
seems  to  see  God  or  an  angel  and  hear  words  from 
them.  There  was  a  time  when  a  vision  was  sup- 
posed to  necessarily  be  a  divine  communication  or 
at  least  a  communication  from  some  superhuman 
spirit.  The  very  fact  of  having  a  vision  was  to  the 
people  of  that  time  entirely  sufficient  to  make  them 
believe  a  superhuman  revelation  was  being  made, 
for  they  did  not  suppose  a  vision  could  be  experi- 
enced in  any  other  way,  and  it  seemed  to  the  person 
experiencing  it  to  be  a  superhuman  revelation.  We 
now  know  that  the  seeing  of  visions  is  a  common 
pathological  condition  resulting  from  certain  mental 
conditions  without  any  external  objective  presenta- 
tion. The  mere  fact,  therefore,  that  a  person  has  a 
vision  and  seems  to  see  God  or  an  angel  speaking 
to  him,  is  not  now  sufficient  proof  that  God  is 
specially  speaking  to  him,  since  all  that  we  know  he 
is  conscious  of  experiencing  has  been  experienced  by 
others  from  merely  subjective  or  mental  conditions. 

At  the  same  time,  that  is  not  sufficient  proof  that 
he  certainly  is  not  receiving  a  revelation,  or  God  is 
certainly  not  speaking  to  him,  and  there  certainly  is 
not  any  objective  cause  or  agency  present.  In  case 
it  were  otherwise  known  that  it  was  probable  that 
God  would  speak  to  this  man  and  that  this  was  a 
probable  way  of  His  speaking  to  him  if  He  did  speak, 
there  might  still  be  a  possibility  or  even  a  probabil- 
ity that  it  was  a  case  of  His  speaking.     It  would  re- 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  I49 

main  then  for  other  evidence, — the  internal  evidence 
of  the  thing  revealed,  or  other  evidence  of  some 
kind, — to  fully  determine  whether  in  this  particular 
case  God  were  really  speaking  or  whether  the  per- 
son was  mistaken  and  it  was  all  subjective  and 
pathological. 

What  science  says,  then,  is  that  the  case  is  not 
proven  prima  facie  to  be  a  case  of  God  revealing. 
Just  as  long  as  there  is  a  plausible  possibility  of  ac- 
counting for  all  the  facts  on  any  other  hypothesis  or 
by  any  other  cause  it  declares  that  it  is  not  proven 
by  the  fact  itself  to  be  by  God's  special  revelation. 
In  addition  to  this  science  may  declare  whether,  if  a 
revelation  from  God  were  to  be  made,  it  would  be 
probably  made  in  that  way  or  not.  These  two 
things  science  would  authoritatively  declare,  but 
aside  from  that  it  would  leave  the  question  freely 
open  to  be  determined  by  the  appropriate  evidence 
whether  in  the  specific  case  there  were  an  actual  per- 
sonal revelation  or  communication  from  God  or  not. 

When  we  take  up  the  book  that  is  commonly  con- 
sidered to  be  a  revelation  or  to  contain  revelations 
from  God,  we  find  that  the  revelations  it  purports  to 
contain  were  given  in  three  or  four  ways.  We  may 
divide  them  into  four  classes,  (i)  Theophanies 
or  the  objective  appearing  of  supernatural  beings. 
(2)  Dreams  and  visions.  (3)  Inspiration,  and 
(4)  The  incarnate  word  of  God,  Jesus  Christ.  These 
are  the  main  ways  in  which  it  is  claimed  that  God 
has  communicated  personally  with  men. 

We  may  reserve  the  consideration  of  the  last  of 


I50  REVELATION 

these  for  a  special  section  on  the  subject  of  Christ 
and  His  worlc.  As  to  the  first,  the  so-called  the- 
ophanies,  the  question  is  almost  wholly  a  matter  of 
the  amount  of  historical  evidence.  Science  has 
nothing  particular  to  say  in  the  matter,  except  per- 
haps to  say  that  if  the  object  desired  was,  in  the  in- 
fantile period  of  religion,  when  first  impressions  were 
being  formed,  to  impress  upon  religious  man  that 
the  being  whom  he  was  to  worship  as  God  was  one 
capable  of  personal  fellowship,  the  means  best 
adapted  to  produce  that  result  would  be  some  kind 
of  a  theophany,  or  God  appearing  through  and  in  a 
visible  shape  like  the  form  of  a  man.  That  is  usu- 
ally considered  one  of  the  great  purposes  of  God  be- 
coming man  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  the  same  reasons 
would  apply  equally  to  His  temporarily  exhibiting 
Himself  through  the  form  of  a  man  in  the  infant 
period  of  religious  thought. 

It  is  as  to  the  second  and  third  divisions  that 
science  has  something  very  definite  to  say.  They 
touch  a  field  in  which  science  has  made  specially  in- 
teresting discoveries  and  studies  just  in  the  past  few 
decades.  As  to  inspiration,  it  is  a  matter  whose  evi- 
dence must  be  largely  internal,  from  the  character  of 
the  deliverances,  or  from  some  anterior  promise  or 
expectancy.  In  the  case  of  the  dream  or  vision  or 
ecstasy,  the  evidence  has  formerly  been  considered 
to  lie  in  the  event  itself.  We  may  best,  perhaps, 
consider  the  latter— the  dream,  vision  or  ecstasy — 
first,  though  in  the  end  it  may  be  found  that  the 
same  principles  underlie  them  all. 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  151 

A  considerable  portion  of  the  writings  in  the  Old 
Testament  portion  of  the  Bible  consist  of  exhorta- 
tions by  persons  called  "  prophets,"  who  claim  to 
have  been  directed  by  God  to  speak  as  they  did, 
and  to  have  received  their  messages  directly  re- 
vealed to  them  by  God.  Not  only  so,  but  from  the 
time  of  Samuel,  and  possibly  earlier,  the  history 
speaks  of  an  order  of  prophets  and  special  commu- 
nities of  prophets.  These  prophets  seem  to  have 
been  religious  teachers  claiming  to  get  their  mes- 
sages directly  from  God.  It  is  not  recorded  in  most 
cases  just  how  they  received  their  messages,  but  it 
is  evident  that  in  many  cases  it  was  by  visions.  In 
some  cases  the  seeing  of  such  visions  is  distinctly 
recorded,  as  in  Isaiah  vi.,  Ezekiel  i.,  viii.,  Zechariah 
ii.,  v.,  vi.,  etc.  The  whole  message  of  a  book  is 
often  called  a  "vision"  as  in  Isaiah  i.  i,  Obadiah  i., 
Nahum  i.  i,  etc.  In  Zechariah  i.  8,  iv.  i,  etc.,  the 
communication  seems  to  have  come  at  night  in  the 
form  of  a  night  vision  or  dream.  Baalam  the 
prophet  of  Pethor  seems  to  have  received  his  mes- 
sages at  night  in  the  form  of  dreams  (Numbers 
xxii.  8,  19).  Paul  in  New  Testament  history  is  re- 
corded to  have  frequently  received  revelations  at 
night  by  night  visions  or  dreams.  Such  an  estima- 
tion of  the  divine  origin  of  some  dreams  was  very 
common,  and  the  prophet  Joel  puts  "  dreams  "  along 
with  "visions"  as  the  recognized  way  of  receiving 
revelations  from  God  (Joel  ii.  28,  quoted  Acts  ii.  17). 

From  such  passages  as  i  Samuel  xix.  23,  24  we 
learn  that  a  state  of  ecstasy  or  trance  was  one  of 


152  REVELATION 

the  recognized  forms  of  prophetic  experience.  In 
2  Kings  iii.  15  it  seems  to  have  been  in  a  trance  or 
other  special  state  induced  by  the  playing  of  music 
that  the  prophet  Elisha  received  his  revelation. 
These  three  phenomena  then,  the  vision,  dreams, 
and  the  state  of  trance  or  ecstasy,  seem  to  have 
been  common  conditions  in  which  men  believed  they 
received  communications  from  God.  There  are  very 
many  cases,  it  is  true,  where  there  is  no  record  of 
the  person  being  in  such  a  state,  and  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  in  many  cases  there  was  no  such  experi- 
ence but  the  person  was  in  his  common,  normal, 
waking  condition  when  he  believed  he  was  receiving 
a  communication.  What  is  commonly  called  "  in- 
spiration "  is  conceived  to  be  of  this  latter  nature, 
namely,  God  specially  directing  and  giving  power  or 
information  to  the  mind  working  in  the  normal,  nat- 
ural way.  As  was  said,  however,  we  will  pass  over 
these  for  the  present,  and  consider  the  more  special 
conditions  of  visions,  dreams,  trance,  ecstasy,  etc. 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  say,  with  regard  to  all 
these,  that  the  mere  fact  of  these  phenomena,  and 
of  thoughts  being  conceived  under  the  influence  of 
these  states,  is  no  necessary  indication  that  the 
thoughts  have  any  divine  origin,  or  any  other  origin 
than  the  mind  of  the  person  himself  so  affected.  In 
all  these  states  the  person  affected  seems  to  see  or 
perceive  something  objective,  or  to  be  conscious  of 
another  personality  using  his  organs  and  acting 
through  them,  but  it  is  now  known  that  that  is  no 
conclusive  proof  that  there  really  is  anything  objec- 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  I53 

tive  or  any  other  personality  present.  He  may  seem 
to  be  just  as  definitely  and  absolutely  conscious  of 
the  presence  and  activity  of  the  other  person  as  he 
is  of  his  own  body  and  mind,  and  yet  it  is  now  rec- 
ognized that  that  may  all  be  produced  subjectively 
in  his  own  mind  without  the  actual  existence  of  any 
other  person  or  object  at  all  except  the  working  of 
his  own  mind.  All  these  effects  can  be  produced, 
and  are  frequently  produced,  either  by  disease  or  at 
will  in  the  psychologist's  experimental  laboratory. 

Of  course,  as  to  dreams  it  has  always  been  recog- 
nized by  the  most  primitive  science  that  dreams  are 
natural  phenomena  and  the  fact  of  a  dream  does  not 
necessarily  carry  with  it  any  probability  of  super- 
human communications.  But  what  is  true  of  dreams 
is  now  known  to  be  true  of  all  these  other  experi- 
ences,— of  visions,  ecstasies,  trances,  the  seeming 
presence  of  another  person  acting  through  one's  self, 
and  the  like.  They  are  all  known  to  be  capable 
of  being  produced  by  pathological  causes  or  by 
the  laboratory  experiments  of  the  psychologist.  It 
has  doubtless  seemed  strange  to  many  people  that 
dreams  should  be  given  a  place  along  with  visions 
and  trances  in  the  Bible,  as  a  mode  of  divine  com- 
munication. But  we  now  know  there  is  no  incon- 
gruity in  bracketing  them  all  together,  as  they  all 
belong  to  the  same  grade  of  psychic  facts.  This 
truth  will  have  weight  on  both  sides  of  the  question, 
as  we  shall  see  later. 

In  the  second  place,  we  find  that  all  these  same 
experiences  of  dreams,  visions,  trances  and  the  like, 


154  REVELATION 

are  found  in  connection  with  other  religions  as  proof 
of  divine  revelations  given  there.  Indeed,  they  are 
found  outside  of  religion  entirely,  in  the  interest 
of  all  kinds  of  deception  and  trickery.  The  early 
Greek  oracles,  the  medicine-men  of  uncivilized  tribes, 
the  witches  and  wizards  of  all  ages  and  all  the  nu- 
merous class  of  wonder-workers  of  many  countries 
and  times,  have  made  full  use  of  all  these  experi- 
ences to  gain  the  credulity  of  their  followers,  and  in 
most  cases  have  themselves  believed  in  the  divine 
or  supernatural  character  of  what  they  experienced. 
In  this  respect  it  will  be  a  great  relief  to  the  Chris- 
tian faith  to  have  it  proved  that  these  things  are  not 
necessarily  anything  more  than  the  special  working 
of  the  human  mind  itself. 

EXPERIMENTAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

Experimental  psychology  is  one  of  the  latest  un- 
dertaken branches  of  research.  Though  yet  in  its 
infancy  it  has  already  made  some  of  the  most  won- 
derful discoveries.  There  are  some  that  predict  that 
it  is  to  be  the  great  field  of  research  and  of  scientific 
progress  in  the  future,  and  that  by  its  discoveries 
and  developments  it  will  work  as  many  marvellous 
changes  in  human  life  and  industry  as  have  been 
wrought  by  steam  and  electricity,  and  the  discov- 
eries of  physical  science.  Science,  of  course,  cannot 
build  upon  mere  predictions  and  imaginations,  how- 
ever likely  or  logical  they  may  be  ;  but  the  results 
already  accomplished,  though  incomplete  in  many 
respects,  have  enough  in  them  that  is  solid  and  fully 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  I55 

established  to  change  in  many  fundamental  respects 
our  outlook  on  many  phases  of  the  problem  of  the 
mind's  activity  and  possibilities. 

Thirty  years  ago  the  whole  subject  of  "hypno- 
tism "  or  "  mesmerism,"  as  it  was  sometimes  called, 
was  still  looked  askance  at  by  very  many  scientists, 
as  being,  if  not  wholly  a  piece  of  charlatanry  at  least 
so  much  used  in  that  connection  and  so  mixed  up 
with  fraud  and  deception  as  to  be  unworthy  of 
serious  consideration.  It  was  a  truer  conception 
that  said  that  nothing  is  too  obscure  or  too  suspi- 
cious to  receive  the  most  thorough  and  careful  ex- 
amination by  science.  Indeed  the  more  fraud  and 
malpractice  are  associated  with  its  use  the  more 
imperative  the  need  that  science  should  take  it  in 
hand  and  subject  it  to  the  most  thorough  examina- 
tion. This  has  been  done  and  the  results  have  more 
than  fully  justified  this  decision.  For  it  was  found 
that  this  something  which  charlatans  had  long  been 
allowed  to  monopolize  and  exploit  for  their  fraudu- 
lent purposes  was  really  one  of  the  most  important 
means  of  analyzing  the  natural  powers  of  the  human 
mind. 

Hypnotism  is  now  known  to  be  not  a  magnetic 
control  of  one  mind  by  another,  but  merely  a  method 
of  analysis  of  what  is  in  the  mind  itself,  by  inhibit- 
ing or  repressing  certain  activities  so  that  certain 
others  may  have  free  or  exaggerated  control,  some- 
thing as  chemical  analysis  dissolves  out  all  the  other 
constituents  of  a  compound  so  that  one  only  may  be 
isolated  and  left,  or  the  prism  separates  oti  from  a 


156  REVELATION 

given  spot  all  the  other  constituents  of  light  so  that 
the  red  or  blue  may  appear  there  alone.  It  has  been 
found  a  very  powerful  and  fruitful  agency  in  this  new 
study  of  the  mind.  For  one  thing,  it  has  revealed  a 
great  field  of  latent  energies  and  possibilities  in  the 
mind,  before  hardly  suspected,  and  which  we  now 
commonly  speak  of  under  some  such  term  as  "  the 
subconscious."  The  brilliancy  of  the  results  it  has 
achieved  has  done  much  to  stimulate  similar  psy- 
chical research  in  a  number  of  fields  and  by  a  variety 
of  methods. 

One  of  the  important  results  of  these  studies  has 
been  to  prove  the  identity  or  close  resemblance  of 
many  pathological  or  spontaneously  occurring  ab- 
normal conditions  with  mental  states  producible  ex- 
perimentally by  hypnotism  or  other  means.  Among 
these  we  may  mention  hallucinations,  apparitions, 
many  of  the  delusions  of  insane  people,  the  seeming 
doubling  of  personality  at  times  seen  in  perfectly 
sane  and  normal  people  as  well  as  in  the  insane, 
visions,  trances,  ecstasies  and  a  number  of  other  ex- 
periences. In  these  states  there  is  often,  to  the  per- 
son concerned,  every  appearance  of  something  ob- 
jective being  perceived  by  him,  and  he  is  thoroughly 
convinced  that  such  is  the  case,  but  yet,  as  easily 
shown  by  experiments,  these  experiences  can  all  be 
produced  subjectively  with  nothing  objective  present 
to  be  seen,  produced  by  the  person's  own  mind  un- 
der the  stimulus  of  some  kind  of  suggestion  either 
from  some  other  person  or  from  itself.  Many  of 
these    experiments  are   too   familiar   to   need    any 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  157 

special  notice,  but  a  brief  discussion  of  the  subject 
is  given  in  the  appendices  at  the  close  of  the  volume. 

We  might  merely  notice  in  passing  that  while  the 
actual  appearances  are  subjective  effects,  apparently 
produced  by  the  person's  own  mind,  yet  the  sugges- 
tions that  produce  them,  or  something  that  gives 
rise  to  them,  is  often  something  that  comes  from  an- 
other person.  Indeed  in  so  imperfectly  understood 
a  phenomenon  we  cannot  say  positively  that  there  is 
never  something  objective  present  and  perceived  by 
the  mind.  Some  fairly  well  attested  cases,  in  the 
form  in  which  they  are  reported,  seem  very  much  to 
suggest  something  of  the  kind.  In  any  case  an- 
other person  besides  the  one  who  sees  the  vision  or 
has  the  subconscious  experience,  is  often  concerned 
in  the  case  as  the  cause  of  his  having  the  experience. 

But  the  first  significant  fact,  which  is  well  recog- 
nized now,  is  that  all  these  various  kinds  of  experi- 
ence can  be  brought  about  at  will  by  purely  human 
minds  working  with  the  natural  powers  with  which 
they  are  endowed  and  in  methods  which  are  all  per- 
fectly consonant  with  the  character  of  the  human 
mind.  A  person,  for  instance,  under  the  influence  of 
hypnotism  may  be  made  to  see  persons  or  things 
which  do  not  exist,  to  hear  voices  which  do  not  ex- 
ist, and  be  as  positively  sure  that  he  sees  and  hears 
them  as  we  are  in  the  ordinary  use  of  our  senses. 
He  may  also  be  made  to  have  all  the  experiences  of 
vision,  trance  and  ecstasy.  And  yet  it  is  all  merely 
the  activity  of  his  own  mind,  with  nothing  more  than 
mental  suggestions  from  another  person. 


158  REVELATION 

Here  we  have  then  all  the  essential  phenomena 
recorded  as  the  states  in  which  men  received  alleged 
revelation  by  vision,  ecstasy  and  the  like.  They  are 
all  produced  in  the  mind  in  that  state,  or  series  of 
allied  states,  to  which  has  been  given  the  name,  **  the 
subconscious."  As  these  phenomena  can  be  pro- 
duced in  the  psychological  laboratory  at  will,  the 
mere  occurrence  of  such  phenomena  in  any  individ- 
ual is  no  indication  that  he  is  receiving  a  communi- 
cation from  God  or  any  communication  from  any 
outside  source  at  all. 

Thus  far  all  scientific  critics  would  agree.  This 
principle  seems  to  have  been  recognized  in  the  pro- 
phetic system  of  the  Bible  itself,  as  the  test  pre- 
scribed for  knowing  whether  any  message  is  from 
God  or  not  is  not  drawn  from  the  phenomena  of  its 
reception  but  from  other  legitimate  evidence.  (See 
Deut.  xviii.  20-23  5  ^iii-  i~3»  ^tc.) 

There  is,  however,  another  range  of  psychic  phe- 
nomena even  more  closely  related  to  our  problem 
than  those  which  we  have  just  considered,  phenom- 
ena, too,  which  are  classified  in  the  same  general 
series  as  these  others,  under  the  name  of  "  the  sub- 
conscious." By  various  proofs  they  are  known  to  be 
best  produced  in  a  state  of  mind  related  to,  or  iden- 
tical with,  that  which  is  the  basis  of  all  the  other 
states  catalogued  under  that  name.  Various  names 
are  given  to  the  phenomena,  as  "  clairvoyance," 
"  telepathy,"  "  mind-reading  "  and  the  like.  (See  a 
fuller  discussion  in  Appendix  B.) 

The  difficulty  in  investigating  these  phenomena  is 


SCIENCE   AND   REVELATION  1 59 

greatly  increased  from  two  sources.  In  the  first 
place  the  great  majority  of  cases  which  claim  to  be 
special  phenomena  of  this  character  are  proved  to 
be  entirely  fraudulent,  and  merely  clever  tricks.  So 
great  has  been  the  proportion  of  cases  whose  fraudu- 
lence  has  been  proved  that  scientific  men,  until  very 
recently,  have  contented  themselves  with  the  theory 
that  it  was  all  fraud,  and  unworthy  of  serious  inves- 
tigation. Happily,  however,  more  recent  investiga- 
tors have  taken  up  the  subject  in  a  serious  manner, 
and  by  means  of  the  most  thorough  and  searching 
tests  have  been  able  to  sift  out  from  the  mass  of 
fraud  a  residuum  of  true  psychic  phenomena  of  a 
remarkable  character,  and  whose  genuineness  is 
as  thoroughly  established  as  any  scientific  data 
can  be. 

As  to  this  residuum  of  fully  attested  psychic  phe- 
nomena, opinions  differ  in  assigning  its  cause  and 
nature.  There  are  some  men  of  high  standing  who 
are  disposed  to  consider  that  at  least  in  some  of 
these  phenomena  there  are  outside  disembodied 
spirits  communicating  with  the  spirit  of  the  "  percipi- 
ent" or  person  exhibiting  the  phenomena.  Other 
observers  of  the  same  phenomena  are  not  prepared 
to  concede  that  there  is  sufficient  proof  of  communi- 
cations from  an  outside  spirit,  but  believe  the  knowl- 
edge displayed  by  the  "  percipient "  and  which  he 
seems  to  get  from  some  outside  spirit  is  really 
obtained  by  his  own  mind  or  spirit  from  the  minds 
of  living  persons,  but  without  the  means  of  speech 
or  any  other  physical  act,  since  all  such  physical 


l6o  REVELATION 

communication  has  been  completely  excluded  by  the 
precautions  taken  in  the  tests. 

While  there  is  thus  this  difference  of  opinion  in 
the  interpretation  of  these  peculiar  psychic  phe- 
nomena we  cannot  feel  that  they  are  yet  fully  under- 
stood, but  we  must  notice  one  thing,  that  in  one 
point  there  is  agreement  among  the  observers, 
namely,  that  there  is  information  gained  by  the 
"  percipient"  which  he  did  not  and  could  not  obtain 
by  any  process  of  physical  communication.  In  some 
way  he  has  gained  that  information  directly  and 
without  material  and  physical  means  from  the  spirit 
or  mind  of  some  other  person,  either  living  or  dead. 
The  only  question  in  dispute  is  whether  it  is  pos- 
sible for  the  spirits  of  persons  who  are  dead  to  be 
present  and  make  such  communications.  If  that 
were  conceded  there  would  be  no  more  difficulty  in 
supposing  the  person  received  his  communications 
from  such  a  disembodied  spirit  than  that  he  received 
it  from  the  spirit  or  mind  of  a  living  person,  for 
in  both  cases  the  information  would  be  conveyed 
directly  from  spirit  to  spirit  without  the  means  of 
physical  communication,  since  that  was  carefully  and 
fully  excluded,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  it 
would  be  any  more  easy  for  that  kind  of  communi- 
cation to  be  made  by  a  spirit  in  a  living  body  than 
by  a  spirit  detached  and  not  in  a  human  body,  only 
supposing  there  were  such  spirits  detached  and  not 
in  human  bodies  but  within  reach  of  communication. 

There  would  not  be  room  here  to  go  into  a  full 
discussion    of    this    subject   of   telepathy   or   direct 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  l6l 

thought  transference.  There  are  quite  a  number  of 
reliable  recent  works  which  give  numerous  well  at- 
tested cases  of  telepathy  and  other  proofs  bearing 
on  the  subject,  some  of  which  I  have  referred  to  in 
Appendix  B.  A  very  large  number  of  such  cases, 
in  the  aggregate,  have  been  fully  examined  and 
tested  by  the  "  Society  for  Psychical  Research  "  and 
other  bodies,  and,  what  would  have  more  weight 
perhaps  with  scientific  men,  a  large  number  of  tech- 
nical experiments  and  tests  have  been  performed  to 
determine  specifically  the  possibilities  of  the  mind  in 
this  respect.  The  result  is,  that  however  it  may 
be  yet  with  the  general  public,  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  have  had  most  to  do  with  studying  these  facts, 
there  is  no  longer  any  doubt  that  thoughts  are  thus 
communicated  from  mind  to  mind  without  any  phys- 
ical means. 

THE   "SUBCONSCIOUS"    MIND   THE   INSTRUMENT 
OF  DIRECT   THOUGHT   TRANSFERENCE 

One  special  fact  must  be  noted  with  regard  to 
these  cases  of  telepathy  or  direct  thought  transfer- 
ence. It  has  always  been  noted  by  experimenters 
that  the  most  satisfactory  results  are  obtained  from 
entranced  percipients,  that  is  to  say,  when  the  per- 
son is  in  that  secondary  state  when  the  so-called 
"  subconscious  "  is  dominant.  Practically  all  "  me- 
diums" give  their  manifestations  in  that  condition, 
and  the  principle  is  found  to  hold  good  in  experi- 
ments in  "  mind  reading."  Indeed  in  all  cases  it 
is  believed   to   be   the  "  subconscious "   mind  that 


l62  REVELATION 

receives  the  impressions.  The  state  in  which  the 
impressions  are  best  received  is  the  same  state  that  is 
produced  by  hypnotism.  It  is  now  recognized  that 
the  condition  of  the  mind  in  trance,  ecstasy,  visions 
and  the  Hke,  is  of  the  same  nature.  Some  claim 
that  ordinary  dreams  in  sleep  must  be  classed  as  of 
the  same  character.  At  least  it  is  an  analogous  state. 
Now  we  have  seen  that  in  those  cases  where 
prophets  and  others  are  reputed  to  have  received 
communications  from  God  they  were  just  in  that 
state  of  trance,  ecstasy  or  vision,  where  the  "  sub- 
conscious" mind  is  dominant.  They  were  just  in 
that  state  in  which  our  latest  research  declares  that 
it  is  most  probable  that  direct  thought  transference 
without  physical  means  might  be  experienced.  In 
the  best  authenticated  cases  where  men  have  been 
fully  tested  and  judged  to  be  receiving  direct  com- 
munications without  physical  process  from  other 
minds  to-day,  their  minds  are  in  practically  the  same 
kind  of  secondary  or  abnormal  state  in  which  the 
minds  of  these  ancient  prophets  were  when  they 
were  reputed  to  be  receiving  communications  in 
the  same  way  from  God's  mind.  The  way  these 
prophets  are  reputed  to  have  received  direct  com- 
munications from  the  great  divine  mind  is  precisely 
the  way  our  latest  scientific  research  has  demon- 
strated is  the  way  in  which  such  communications 
would  most  probably  be  received  if  given,  for  it  is 
the  way  in  which  such  direct  communications  are 
made  from  the  mind  of  one  man  to  the  mind  of  an- 
other now.     Instead  of  throwing  suspicion  on  those 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  163 

experiences,  the  fact  of  their  coming  in  the  form  of 
trance  or  vision,  as  far  as  it  has  any  evidential  value, 
is  entirely  in  favour  of  their  genuineness,  as  that  is 
precisely  the  form  in  which,  if  a  revelation  were  to 
be  made,  it  would  most  probably  come.  The  "  sub- 
conscious "  is,  so  to  speak,  the  organ  for  direct 
thought  transference,  just  as  the  optic  and  auditory 
nerves  are  the  organs  for  receiving  thoughts  trans- 
ferred by  physical  processes. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  conviction  of  many 
of  the  most  competent  investigators  of  the  subject 
that  it  is  possible  for  a  mind  to  get  information  from 
another  mind  or  spirit  directly,  without  the  instru- 
mentality of  any  physical  process.  The  chief  differ- 
ence of  opinion  in  this  regard  among  them  is  only 
over  the  question  whether  it  is  possible  or  probable 
that  a  mind  or  spirit  detached  from  a  body  can  be 
present  to  be  the  mind  from  which  the  information 
is  gained,  in  the  cases  under  observation.  But  if  it 
is  a  question  of  receiving  information  from  God 
there  can  be  no  doubt  in  that  respect.  If,  as  we  are 
now  assuming,  God  exists  as  a  great  spirit,  with  in- 
telligence, thoughts  and  all  the  other  attributes  of 
the  human  mind,  and  is  present  everywhere,  there 
can  be  no  more  doubt  of  the  possibility  of  receiving 
information  in  this  way  from  His  mind  than  of  receiv- 
ing it  from  the  minds  of  finite  men,  as  the  investi- 
gators concede  is  done. 

We  have  seen,  then,  that  the  state  of  trance, 
vision  or  ecstasy  is  not  necessarily  in  itself  a  proof 
of  divine  communication,  since  it  is  merely  a  mental 


1 64  REVELATION 

condition  that  is  easily  produced  by  natural  causes. 
But  we  have  also  seen  that  those  are  just  the  states 
in  which,  in  present  day  instances,  persons  receive 
direct,  immediate  communications  from  other  minds, 
and  if  God  were  to  make  direct  communications  to 
the  minds  of  men  that  is  the  state  in  which  it  would 
be  most  natural  to  expect  that  they  would  receive 
them.  Moreover,  since  God  is  a  spirit  like  the  minds 
of  men,  and  is  present  and  available  as  a  source 
from  which  communications  or  information  might 
be  received  in  this  way,  there  is  no  more  improba- 
bility of  prophets  receiving  information  from  the 
mind  of  God  in  that  way  than  of  mediums  and  ex- 
perimenters receiving  information  from  the  minds  of 
present  or  absent  men  in  the  same  way,  a  fact  that 
is  now  practically  conceded  by  competent  investi- 
gators in  this  field  of  research, 

CLAIM   OF  THE   BIBLE   TO  BE   GOD'S   REVELATION 

Thus  we  see  that,  while  of  course  science  does  not 
bring  any  positive  proof  that  in  any  instance  a 
revelation  from  God  has  been  received,  yet  it  does 
entirely  remove  all  improbability  of  such  a  revela- 
tion being  received  in  just  the  way  it  is  alleged  to 
have  been  received,  and  leaves  the  question  entirely 
unprejudiced  to  be  determined  by  historical  and 
other  methods  of  criticism,  just  as  any  other  fact  is 
determined.  And  it  is  very  significant  to  note  in 
this  connection  that  the  prophets  themselves,  as  we 
have  already  noted,  based  their  claim  to  be  be- 
lieved as  giving  the  mind  of  God  distinctly  upon 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  165 

the  intrinsic  and  internal  character  of  the  messages 
which  they  gave,  and  the  other  natural  and  col- 
lateral evidence.  We  are  warranted,  therefore,  in 
taking  up  the  question  whether  a  certain  piece  of 
information,  teaching  or  command  came  from  God, 
with  no  more  adverse  prejudice,  and  in  just  the 
same  way  as  if  we  were  inquiring  whether  it  came 
from  Paul,  or  David,  or  Luther,  or  Moody. 

It  is  not  in  place  here,  of  course,  to  discuss  such 
questions  which  belong  to  the  domain  of  historical 
and  philosophical  criticism,  but  we  may  just  sug- 
gest that  in  the  course  of  the  propagation  and 
development  of  what  the  world  now  recognizes  to 
be  the  highest  form  of  the  worship  of  the  creator 
God,  a  cult  which  lays  the  greatest  stress  upon  both 
the  possibility  and  the  desirability  of  personal 
fellowship  with  God,  and  emphatically  claims  to  be 
based  upon  such  personal  communications  from 
God,  a  cult  which  has  won  its  way  upward  to  purity 
of  form  and  outward  to  the  very  widest  dissemina- 
tion, all  against  the  most  tremendous  odds  and 
opposition ;  to  suppose  that  in  all  that  process  there 
has  never  been  any  personal  communication  from 
that  divine  Spirit  received  by  the  mind  of  any  man, 
when,  as  we  have  just  seen,  science  declares  that  it 
would  be  perfectly  easy  and  natural  for  such  com- 
munications to  be  received,  and  the  evolutional  situ- 
ation itself  calls  for  it,  would  be  an  anomaly  so  strange 
that  science  should  demand  the  most  convincing  rea- 
sons and  proof  before  it  could  accept  it. 

Again    if     we    concede    that    such    communica- 


1 66  REVELATION 

tions  have  been  made  by  God  and  received  by 
men  at  any  time,  then  taking  those  things  in  the 
Bible  which  purport  to  be  such  revelations,  and 
comparing  them  with  all  others  in  other  nations, 
times  or  places  which  also  claim  to  be  revelations 
from  God,  the  question  is  whether  these,  by  their 
intrinsic  character  and  other  evidence,  would  still,  in 
view  of  the  similar  claims  put  forth  by  others,  be 
judged  high  enough  in  rank  to  be  included  in  the 
selection  that  should  be  adjudged  true  revelations 
from  God.  Do  these  show  as  much  sign  of  being 
true  revelations  from  God  as  any  other  teachings 
that  are  found  elsewhere  ?  To  this  question  I  think 
the  answer  must  be  unquestionably  in  the  affirma- 
tive. If  any  revelation  has  at  any  time  been 
received  from  God  it  is  more  probable  that  this  is 
part  of  that  revelation  than  any  other  known  teach- 
ing that  assumes  to  be  so.  That  some  revelation 
should  be  received  we  have  seen  is  most  impera- 
tively probable.  Thus  indirectly  we  do  find  some 
most  important  reasons  for  believing  that  these 
communications  which  prophets  and  holy  men 
received  in  the  state  in  which  science  has  proved 
that  communications  are  received  direct  from  the 
spirit  of  another,  were  really,  as  they  claimed  to  be, 
teachings  received  from  the  mind  of  God,  or  revela- 
tions. 

INSPIRATION 

There  remains  to  be  considered  another  way  in 
which  it  is  claimed  that  God  has  communicated  His 
thoughts  to  men,  namely,  what  is  commonly  referred 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  167 

to  under  the  term  "  inspiration."  The  communica- 
tion or  direction  is  received  by  the  person  in  his 
normal  state,  without  any  trance,  ecstasy  or  other 
special  experience.  It  seems  probable  also  even  in 
the  case  of  the  prophets,  that  some  of  the  messages 
which  they  gave  as  received  from  God  were  not 
received  by  vision,  dream  or  any  such  special  way, 
but  they  were  in  the  use  of  all  their  faculties  when 
they  believed  they  were  receiving  the  communica- 
tion. 

This,  however,  is  no  obstacle  to  believing  that 
there  was  an  actual  communication  from  God, 
provided  there  is  otherwise  proof  that  a  communica- 
tion has  been  given.  We  have  shown  above  that 
the  dream,  vision,  trance  or  ecstasy  is  a  very  suit- 
able state  for  a  communication  to  be  received  from 
God  if  such  a  communication  is  to  be  given.  But  it 
is  so,  not  because  there  is  anything  supernatural 
about  these  states,  but  merely  because  they  are 
states  in  which  the  "  subconscious "  is  in  control, 
and  the  "  subconscious  "  seems  to  be  the  instrument 
or  faculty  by  which  telepathic  communications  are 
received,  or  by  which  knowledge  is  received  without 
the  medium  of  physical  processes. 

But  the  "subconscious"  is  not  an  outside  some- 
thing that  comes  into  the  mind  at  certain  times.  It 
is  an  integral  part  of  the  mind  itself,  and  always 
present  even  in  normal  activity.  Hypnotism  does 
not  produce  it  but  merely  holds  in  check  something 
that  ordinarily  restrains  it,  and  thus  lets  it  emerge 
and  have  free  activity.    The  same  is  true  of  whatever 


1 68  REVELATION 

causes  the  other  states  where  the  "  subconscious  "  is 
in  the  ascendency.  It  is  merely  giving  free  rein  to 
something  that  is  always  present  though  held  in 
restraint  in  normal  life. 

Moreover,  experiments  have  proved  by  a  variety 
of  methods  that  this  "  subconscious  mind,"  though 
comparatively  quiescent,  is  not  only  existent  but  is 
often  to  some  extent  active  in  many  of  our  ordinary 
thought  processes.  In  particular  this  has  been 
shown  in  some  of  the  very  experiments  used  to 
prove  this  fact  of  telepathy.  (See  Appendix  B.)  In 
that  class  of  experiments  where  a  person  is  made  to 
guess  an  object  or  number  upon  which  other  persons 
are  concentrating  their  minds,  though  the  propor- 
tion of  correct  guesses  is  much  greater  when  the 
"  percipient "  or  guesser  is  hypnotized,  yet  even  in  his 
normal  condition  the  number  of  correct  guesses  will 
be  found  very  much  larger  than  the  law  of  averages 
would  indicate  to  be  probable  from  chance  alone, 
thus  indicating  that  even  in  the  normal  state  his 
mind  had  been  in  some  degree  influenced  by  the 
minds  of  the  persons  who  knew  the  thing  that  he 
was  guessing. 

If  then  telepathic  perception  is  experienced  in 
some  minor  degree  by  all  persons  even  in  a  normal 
state,  and  the  "subconscious"  which  is  the  instrument 
of  such  telepathic  receptivity  is  present  and  active  to 
some  extent  even  in  our  normal  thinking,  there  can 
be  no  impediment  to  believing  that  the  great  divine 
Spirit  might  make  communications  to  men  while 
comparatively  in  their  normal  condition,  or  might 


SCIENCE   AND   REVELATION  1 69 

suggest  ideas  or  direct  and  make  more  efficient  the 
thought  processes  and  reasoning  powers  of  a  man 
studying  and  reasoning  in  his  normal  condition. 
To  do  so  is  to  do  no  more  than  those  who  have 
made  the  closest  study  of  this  phase  of  experimental 
psychology  believe  one  human  mind  can  do  directly 
to  another. 

If  this  is  true,  and  God  does  exert  such  influence 
upon  the  minds  of  men,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  im- 
plications are  exceeding  wide  and  far-reaching.  In 
the  first  place,  what  is  commonly  called  "  inspira- 
tion" becomes  perfectly  plausible  and  clearly  defin- 
able. It  is  claimed  for  the  writers  of  the  various 
parts  of  the  Bible  that  they  were  inspired  by  God. 
And  yet  it  is  plain  in  all  the  writings  that  the  writer's 
own  mental  processes  were  as  much  used  in  the  col- 
lection of  the  facts,  the  reasoning  and  the  literary 
composition  as  though  he  had  no  "  inspiration." 
There  is  the  unmistakable  imprint  of  a  different  per- 
sonality on  each  different  writing.  This  would  be 
expected  to  be  true  if  his  work  was  overseen  and 
helped  by  some  human  friend,  and  the  relation  of 
God  in  "  inspiration  "  is  essentially  of  the  same  char- 
acter, only  that  the  human  friend  would  give  his 
help  and  direction  by  an  audible  voice  and  God  by 
the  process  called  "  telepathy  "  or  something  similar. 

That  God  gives  His  communications  only  or 
chiefly  to  the  subconscious  mind  is  only  because  that 
is  the  instrument  adapted  to  receive  thoughts  trans- 
ferred without  physical  agency.  Whether  God  could 
or   could   not   give   thought   communications    that 


I70  REVELATION 

could  be  perceived  by  the  ordinary  conscious  mind 
we  need  not  stop  to  inquire.  It  is  sufficient  that  the 
"  subconscious  "  mind  is  the  part  of  our  mental  or- 
ganism that  is  adapted  to  receive  direct  thought 
communications.  The  ear  or  the  auditory  system  is 
the  part  of  our  organism  that  is  adapted  to  receive 
communications  by  means  of  speech  or  sound.  It 
has  been  found  in  the  case  of  certain  persons  en- 
tirely without  the  sense  of  hearing,  that  the  impact 
of  sound  waves  on  other  parts  of  the  body  produces 
sensations  that  can  be  perceived  and  differentiated 
by  the  common  sensory  nerve  system.  It  would  be 
possible  therefore  for  speech,  or  the  communication 
of  thoughts  by  sound  vibrations,  to  be  addressed  to 
and  perceived  by  some  other  part  of  our  mental  or- 
ganism apart  from  the  auditory  system,  and  yet  if 
God  wished  to  communicate  His  thoughts  by  means 
of  speech  we  would  expect  Him  to  address  Himself 
to,  and  be  perceived  by,  the  ear  and  auditory  system 
and  not  by  that  other  possible  means,  not  because 
the  other  is  not  possible,  but  because  the  auditory 
system  is  the  instrument  intended  for  and  adapted 
to  the  perceiving  of  speech.  Just  so  the  "  subcon- 
scious "  is  the  part  of  the  mental  organism  adapted 
to,  and  adjusted  for  the  perceiving  of  directly  com- 
municated thought  communications,  and  so  it  is  the 
part  of  our  mental  organism  that  perceives  when 
God  makes  a  direct  mental  communication. 

As  has  been  said  above,  however,  this  "  subcon- 
scious "  is  present  and  active  all  the  time,  only  or- 
dinarily we  are  not  distinctly  conscious  of  its  con- 


SCIENCE   AND   REVELATION  I7I 

tents  or  its  activity.  It  may  rise  into  distinct  con- 
sciousness under  hypnotism,  or  in  the  trance  and 
other  allied  states,  it  may  be  partially  in  control 
while  the  normal  faculties  are  also  conscious  and  ac- 
tive, in  a  state  of  semi-hypnotism,  or  again  it  may 
be  active  and  influencing  our  normal  thought  proc- 
esses while  we  are  entirely  unconscious  of  its  activity. 
If  then  God's  communications  are  made  to  and 
perceived  by  the  "  subconscious  "  faculty,  they  may 
be  received  and  perceived  in  a  vision,  trance,  ecstasy 
or  some  similar  fully  hypnotic  condition,  or  they 
may  be  received  and  perceived  by  the  person  while 
still  in  the  use  of  all  his  ordinary  faculties  but  in  a 
sort  of  semi-hypnotic  condition.  This  is  the  state  in 
which  it  is  supposed  that  the  prophets  sometimes  re- 
ceived their  messages.  In  the  third  place,  they  may 
be  received  and  perceived  by  the  "  subconscious " 
and  the  "  subconscious  "  transmit  them  to  the  other 
departments  of  the  mind  or  use  them  in  directing  the 
normal  thought  processes,  without  the  normal  facul- 
ties being  at  all  disturbed  from  their  ordinary  opera- 
tions and  consciousness.  This  would  seem  to  be  the 
definition  of  what  is  commonly  spoken  of  under  the 
term  "inspiration." 

REVIVALS 

There  is  still  another  implication  more  closely 
allied  to  our  present  experiences  and  practices. 
One  of  the  experiences  of  religious  activity  in  the 
present  as  in  the  past  is,  at  certain  times,  a  con- 
tagion of  feeling  and  resolve  by  which  large  num- 


172  REVELATION 

bers  of  persons  believe  themselves  to  be  converted 
or  lifted  into  some  higher  plane  of  life,  and  which 
are  usually  called  "  revivals."  These  revivals  are 
sometimes  accompanied  by  special  ecstatic,  trance, 
and  other  similar  experiences.  Formerly  these 
special  ecstatic  phenomena  were  supposed  to  be 
necessarily  divine  manifestations,  and  so  proof  that 
the  revival  was  God's  work.  Recent  psychologists, 
however,  have  shown  conclusively  that  these  special 
manifestations  are  not  in  themselves  any  evidence 
of  divine  special  working,  since  they  are  all  merely 
manifestations  of  subconscious  control,  the  same  as 
is  seen  in  ordinary  hypnotic  states.  As  many  ex- 
cesses are  often  performed  by  persons  in  these 
ecstatic  states,  hurtful  alike  to  their  own  persons 
and  to  the  cause  of  religion,  it  is  a  relief  to  know 
that  this  feature  can  no  longer  claim  to  have  the 
sanction  of  being  a  divine  manifestation. 

But  many  have  gone  farther,  and  drawn  the  in- 
ference that  not  only  all  such  ecstatic  experiences, 
but  indeed  all  religious  contagion,  since  it  is  not,  as 
supposed,  a  special  divine  manifestation,  is  a  false 
pretense  and  a  delusion  and  ought  to  be  only  dis- 
couraged and  avoided  in  religious  meetings.  But 
this  is  an  entirely  wrong  inference.  The  very  dis- 
covery that  takes  these  experiences  out  of  the  realm 
of  the  supernatural  gives  them  a  place  in  the  realm 
of  the  natural,  as  an  integral  part  of  our  natural 
mental  apparatus.  There  is  nothing  necessarily  false 
about  them  because  they  are  not  what  people  for- 
merly supposed  them  to  be,  any  more  than  there  is 


SCIENCE   AND   REVELATION  1 73 

anything  necessarily  false  about  the  manifestations 
of  experimental  hypnotism  because  the  same  proc- 
esses were  formerly  exploited  by  charlatans  under 
the  titles  of  magic,  or  animal  magnetism. 

The  only  legitimate  question  with  regard  to  these 
things  is  whether  or  not  they  are  useful  mental 
states  and  processes, — whether  they  produce  results 
helpful  to  the  religious  life  or  not. 

With  regard  to  the  more  violent  forms,  as  ecstasy, 
catalepsy  and  the  like  it  is  for  the  physician  to  say 
whether  the  shock  to  the  mental  and  physical  or- 
ganism may  not  more  than  overbalance  any  good 
results  experienced.  But  for  the  cases  of  simple 
contagion  of  feeling  and  impulse,  which  are  the 
more  common  and  ordinary  features  of  all  revival 
occasions,  the  main  question  is, — What  is  the  rela- 
tion of  those  states  to  the  receptivity  of  the  mind  ? 
are  they  useful  in  helping  to  persuade  the  persons 
concerned  and  in  leading  them  to  the  changed  life 
that  the  preacher  is  urging  upon  them  ?  and  on  that 
question  all  the  facts  which  we  have  been  just  con- 
sidering have  an  important  bearing. 

It  is  generally  recognized  that  this  contagion  of 
feeling  and  impulse  is  caused  by,  and  consists  in,  a 
measure  of  "subconscious"  control.  We  can  easily 
see  then  just  what  is  the  value  and  the  potency  of 
this  state.  The  most  characteristic  feature  of  the 
"subconscious"  is  its  extreme  suggestibility.  The 
hypnotized  subject  believes  and  does  anything 
whatever  that  is  suggested  to  him.  He  will  also 
afterwards  in  his  normal  state  carry  out  the  sugges- 


174  REVELATION 

tions  made  to  him  while  hypnotized,  as  in  so-called 
"post-hypnotic  suggestion."  Moreover,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  "subconscious"  constantly  exerts 
influence  upon  the  normal  self  and  passes  on  to  it 
to  some  extent  the  impressions  or  states  which  it 
receives,  and  so  its  activity  affects  all  the  ordinary 
life  of  the  individual.  Especially  would  we  expect 
this  to  be  so,  if  the  suggestion  were  accepted  by  the 
"  subconscious  "  in  a  state  when  the  normal  powers 
were  also  consciously  active  and  accepted  the  sug- 
gestion also  at  the  same  time. 

This  seems  to  be  the  case  in  the  kind  of  contagion 
experienced  in  revivals.  It  seems  to  be  a  sort  of 
semi-hypnosis  combining  the  suggestibility  of  the 
"  subconscious  "  and  the  permanency  of  normal  be- 
lief, and  with  it  all  that  deep  influence  upon  the  fun- 
damental functions  of  life  which  is  characteristic  of 
subconscious  suggestions.  This  state  into  which 
the  hearers  are  thrown  by  the  contagion  is  therefore 
a  highly  suggestible  state  in  which  they  tend  to  be- 
lieve all  that  the  speaker  declares  and  to  do  and  re- 
solve all  that  he  advises.  If  the  aim  of  the  preacher 
is  to  induce  men  to  adopt  certain  right  and  religious 
beliefs  and  practices,  we  could  hardly  conceive  of  a 
more  effective  aid  to  attaining  that  end  than  just 
this  state  of  contagion.  Moreover  the  effects  of  post- 
hypnotic suggestion  come  in  to  keep  these  new  be- 
liefs and  practices  in  active  operation  long  enough 
to  produce  permanent  habits  of  the  life. 

As  to  the  ethical  aspect  of  such  a  method  of  per- 
suading men,  if  any  one  should  be  disposed  to  object 


SCIENCE  AND   REVELATION  175 

on  that  score,  they  should  remember  that  it  is  not  by 
any  means  only  here  that  suggestion  is  used  as  a 
means  of  producing  belief  and  action.  It  would  not 
be  too  much  to  say  that  in  a  large  proportion  of  the 
things  that  we  believe  suggestion  had  a  part  in  the 
influences  that  brought  us  to  believe  in  them,  as 
truly  as  pure  reason,  and  in  many  cases  it  has  been 
pure  suggestion  alone,  unconscious  but  none  the  less 
truly  so,  that  has  caused  our  belief.  As  to  actions,  it 
would  be  safe  to  say  that  suggestion  is  by  far  the 
most  potent  of  all  the  influences  that  lead  men  to 
bad  conduct.  It  is  rather  straining  a  point  then  to 
object  because  suggestion  is  used  as  a  means  to  lead 
people  to  beliefs  that  are  conceded  to  be  salutary  and 
conduct  that  is  unquestionably  good.  For  this  sug- 
gestibility is  not  an  alien  thing  or  a  magic  spell,  but 
an  integral  part  of  our  mental  constitution,  just  as 
legitimate  a  part  of  our  mental  constitution  as  our 
memory,  our  reason  or  our  artistic  tastes.  There  is 
no  reason  therefore  why  it  is  not  just  as  legitimate  to 
use  it  to  influence  men,  as  to  use  their  artistic  tastes 
or  even  their  reason.  A  person  may  be  thrown  into 
brain-fever  by  stimulating  his  reasoning  powers  ex- 
cessively, and  there  are  bad  effects  that  may  follow 
an  excessive  or  wrong  stimulating  of  this  mental 
state.  But  in  neither  case  does  that  make  it  wrong 
to  use  that  process  to  influence  men. 

god's  spirit  in  revivals 
But  this  is  not  all.     If  this  state  of  contagion  in- 
duced in  revivals  is  a  functioning  of  the  "subcon- 


1 76  REVELATION 

scious,"  we  must  also  remember  that  it  is  the  "  sub- 
conscious "  that  is  susceptible  to  communications  by 
telepathy.  If  God's  Spirit  makes  direct  thought 
communications  to  the  minds  of  men,  the  men  in  that 
state  of  contagion  would  be  in  precisely  the  state  to 
receive  and  perceive  His  communications. 

It  is  venturesome  to  even  make  conjectures  on  a 
subject  of  such  transcendent  character,  but  if  we  be- 
lieve the  Spirit  or  mind  of  God  is  always  present 
with  us,  and  here  we  have  a  person  earnestly  desir- 
ing to  know  the  mind  of  God  and  partially  in  that 
subconscious  condition  in  which  it  is  claimed  that  a 
mind  can  directly  read  another  mind,  is  it  not  pos- 
sible that  under  the  laws  and  teaching  of  the  most 
modern  science  we  may  still  find  reason  to  believe 
there  is  a  special  meeting  with  God  in  the  revival 
experience  ?  It  may  be  in  a  different  way  and  for 
different  reasons,  but  is  it  not  possible  that  we  may 
be  after  all  able  just  as  firmly  as  our  fathers  to  be- 
lieve that  the  revival  and  conversion  experience  is  a 
special  meeting  of  the  soul  with  God  ?  that  the  sub- 
conscious mind  of  the  "  inquirer  "  really  receives  di- 
rectly from  God  some  communication  or  influence 
that  profoundly  affects  all  his  life  ? 

What  is  true  of  the  revival  and  conversion  expe- 
rience may  be  also  true  of  the  experiences  of  the 
after  life.  If  God  is  not  a  distant  being,  millions 
of  miles  away  from  us  in  heaven,  but  a  great  spirit 
or  mind  ever  close  to  us  and  present  with  us,  and  if 
the  "  subconsciousness  "  with  its  telepathic  powers 
is  active  in  our  normal  state  as  well  as  in  the  special 


A 


SCIENCE   AND   REVELATION  1 77 

trance  or  secondary  conditions,  who  can  say  that 
to  those  that  desire  and  seek  them  there  may  not  be 
communications  and  directive  influences  constantly 
received  from  the  mind  of  God  direct  ?  The  possi- 
bilities opened  up  by  the  latest  discoveries  of  science 
as  to  the  powers  of  the  mind  are  very  great,  at  least 
as  great  in  this  respect  as  the  faith  of  the  average 
Christian  is  usually  able  to  accept. 

The  investigations  of  science  in  this  field  of  ex- 
perimental psychology  are  so  recent  and  as  yet  so 
incomplete  that  one  hesitates  to  speculate  as  to  the 
future.  It  is  easy  to  give  rein  to  the  imagination 
and  look  for  as  revolutionary  discoveries  in  this  line 
in  the  present  century  as  were  produced  in  the  line 
of  physical  research  in  the  last.  In  the  above  dis- 
cussions, however,  we  have  entirely  restrained  imag- 
ination and  only  built  upon  such  of  the  already 
established  facts  as  are  generally  accepted  by  com- 
petent investigators.  But  as  we  have  seen,  even  this 
modest  selection  of  already  fully  assured  facts  is 
quite  sufficient  to  prove  that  there  is  nothing  antag- 
onistic to  sound  scientific  principles  in  any  of  the 
claims  of  the  Bible  as  to  any  of  its  contents  being  a 
revelation  from  God.  On  the  contrary  we  have  seen 
that  God,  being  such  a  being  as  the  previous  discus- 
sions have  indicated  Him  to  be,  the  evolution  hy- 
pothesis itself  would  positively  call  for  personal 
communications  from  Him  to  intelligent  man,  and  if 
such  communications  were  to  be  made  the  most 
natural  and  probable  forms  in  which  we  might  expect 
them  to  be  made  would  be  just  the  forms  in  which 


178  REVELATION 

the  Bible  claims  that  they  were  made.  We  see 
therefore  that  as  far  as  it  has  bearing  on  the  ques- 
tions at  all  the  results  of  the  latest  investigations  and 
discoveries  of  psychical  science  seem  rather  to  cor- 
roborate than  to  antagonize  all  the  teachings  of 
Christianity,  with  regard  to  the  revelations  made  to 
prophets,  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  the  special 
work  of  God's  Spirit  in  revival  experiences  and  God's 
constant  guidance  and  teaching  for  those  w^ho  be- 
lieve and  trust  in  Him.  All  such  experiences  fit  in 
exactly  with  what  the  latest  investigations  are  indi- 
cating to  be  the  real  nature  and  powers  of  the  human 
mind. 


Ill 

THE  BIBLE  AS  A  REVELATION 

UNQUESTIONABLY  when  considering  the 
forms  of  revelation,  the  most  important  form 
of  all  must  be  conceded  to  be  the  personal 
revelation  of  God  in  and  through  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  will  be  more  convenient,  however,  to  post- 
pone that  question  and  all  other  questions  connected 
with  the  character  and  work  of  Jesus  to  a  later  place 
where  they  can  all  be  considered  as  a  connected 
whole.  We  may  then  here  pass  on  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  next  division, — "  The  Contents  of  Rev- 
elation." 

Without  attempting  to  answer  the  question  whether 
God  may  not  have  also  made  revelations  to  other 
persons,  as  for  instance  Zoroaster,  Shaka,  Confucius 
and  other  great  religious  leaders,  we  will  confine  our 
attention  here  to  the  one  revelation  with  which  the 
Christian  religion  is  most  intimately  related, — the 
revelation  which  is  given  in  the  Christian  Bible, — the 
Old  and  New  Testament. 

We  have  already  defined  that  by  "revelation"  we 
mean  the  communication  of  thoughts  as  thoughts 
personally  from  God  to  men.  As  was  said  above, 
however,  we  may  also  to  some  extent  include  under 
the  term  truths  conveyed  by  significant  acts  pro- 
vided those  acts  and  the  lessons  they  convey  are 

179 


l8o  REVELATION 

specifically  held  up  to  view  or  attention  called  to 
them  by  some  direct  message  or  indication  from 
God. 

NATURE   OF  THE    CONTENTS   OF  THE   BIBLE 

If  we  attempt  to  classify  this  material  in  the  Bible 
that  is  commonly  called  a  revelation,  we  might  di- 
vide it  into  three  or  four  classes. 

First,  we  may  put  the  prophecies,  which  are  claimed 
to  be  given  by  the  direct  command  and  instruction 
of  God. 

Second,  we  might  place  various  didactic  writings, 
such  as  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Job  and  the  like,  with 
the  New  Testament  epistles,  which  are  not  like  the 
prophecies  supposed  to  be  given  by  direct  command 
and  instruction  of  God,  but  are  claimed  to  have  had 
His  assistance  and  indorsement  in  such  a  degree  that 
they  go  out  with  His  authority  as  His  teaching. 
The  various  moral  and  ritual  laws  contained  in  the 
Pentateuch  may  be  assigned  to  this  class  or  to  the 
previous  one  according  to  the  view  that  is  taken  of 
their  genesis  and  authorship. 

Third,  we  might  place  the  devotional  compositions 
in  the  book  of  Psalms  and  elsewhere,  which  are 
chiefly  of  the  nature  of  prayers,  praises  or  other  ad- 
dresses made  to  God,  rather  than  communications 
from  Him,  but  inasmuch  as  they  are  considered  to 
have  the  stamp  of  divine  approval  they  would  so  far 
forth  be  properly  considered  a  revelation  of  His 
mind. 

Fourth  would  be  placed  all  the  historical  portion. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  A  REVELATION  l8l 

This  is,  for  the  most  part,  the  record  of  events  that 
occurred  in  the  history  of  the  nation  and  individuals 
in  the  land  of  Israel,  just  as  human  as  those  that  oc- 
curred in  the  land  of  Greece,  Germany  or  any  other 
land,  but  yet  on  account  of  various  considerations 
as  to  their  nature,  their  selection  and  various  inter- 
pretations that  accompany  them  they  are  considered 
to  be  a  revelation  of  the  will  and  ways  of  working  of 
God  in  concrete  form,  and  as  the  writings  are  sup- 
posed to  go  forth  at  least  with  God's  indorsement 
they  would  so  far  forth  be  properly  counted  a  reve- 
lation from  Him  of  His  will  and  plans. 

As  to  the  first  class,  prophecy,  two  questions 
emerge.  The  first  question,  as  to  whether  or  to 
what  extent  there  is  real  revelation  there,  has  already 
been  discussed  in  former  sections.  It  is  merely  a 
question  of  fact,  and  science  has  no  evidence  to  give, 
further  than  to  show  that  if  a  revelation  were  to  be 
made  from  a  spiritual  being  to  a  man  the  way  in 
which  the  prophets  believed  themselves  to  have  re- 
ceived communications  would  be  precisely  the  most 
natural  and  probable  way  for  it  to  be  made. 

The  second  question  is  as  to  the  object  aimed  at 
by  these  prophecies  or  the  fundamental  nature  of 
their  contents.  There  is  a  very  popular  misconcep- 
tion here.  From  the  common  colloquial  use  of  the 
word  the  main  intent  of  prophecy  is  misconceived 
to  be  the  foretelling  of  future  events.  This  is  to  en- 
tirely mistake  the  nature  of  prophecy.  There  may 
or  may  not  be  such  an  element  in  any  given  proph- 
ecy, but   in   any  case   it  is  merely   incidental    and 


l82  REVELATION 

never  the  main  purpose  of  the  message.  The  main 
purpose  of  every  prophecy  is  always  ethical,  to  per- 
suade men  to  some  line  of  conduct,  and  references  to 
future  events,  if  made,  just  like  references  to  past 
events,  are  introduced  as  showing  God's  will  and 
purpose,  and  as  an  incitement  to  the  acts  the 
prophet  is  insisting  on.  It  is  not  the  purpose  to 
write  history  before  it  occurs  and  give  the  incidents 
of  future  events  before  they  happen,  but  merely  to 
declare  what  God's  present  purpose  for  the  future, 
in  view  of  the  present  state  of  affairs,  is.  Moreover, 
it  is  always  the  tacit  understanding  that  if  that  pres- 
ent state  of  affairs  is  changed  there  will  be  a  cor- 
responding change  in  God's  purpose  and  in  the 
future  event  when  it  happens.  This  is  illustrated,  for 
instance,  in  the  prophecy  of  Jonah,  and  the  principle 
is  explicitly  stated  in  Jeremiah  xviii.  7-10.  Prophecy, 
therefore,  purports  to  be  God  through  the  prophet 
urging  men  to  certain  lines  of  right  conduct.  In 
that  sense  it  is  called  revelation. 

As  to  the  second  class,  the  merely  didactic  writ- 
ings, the  degree  and  the  sense  in  which  they  will  be 
considered  a  revelation  from  God  wall  depend  on  the 
conception  that  is  held  of  inspiration.  The  theory 
of  inspiration  that  is  held  by  perhaps  the  great  ma- 
jority of  enlightened  Christians  to-day  would  con- 
sider that  these  writings  were  produced  by  their  au- 
thors just  as  any  other  writings  are,  the  author 
using  his  own  knowledge  and  own  reasoning  powers 
and  moral  and  religious  instincts  to  formulate  the 
things  he  wished  to  say,  just  as  much  as  any  other 


THE   BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  183 

writer  would.  This  is  also  true  in  a  large  degree  of 
what  the  prophets  said  also,  and  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
Bible. 

However,  just  as  Christians  to-day  believe  they 
receive  help  from  God  in  understanding  the  truth, 
so  and  in  a  much  greater  degree  these  men  were 
helped  in  their  search  after  useful  truth  and  guarded 
from  error  by  God.  In  addition  to  this  it  is  believed 
that  God  so  superintended  the  selection  of  these 
writings,  and  sent  them  forth  with  His  definite  in- 
dorsement in  such  a  way  that  the  things  taught  may 
be  accepted  as  His  teaching  and  expressing  His  will. 

It  has  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  much  of  this  in- 
struction was  conditioned  by  the  circumstances  in 
which  it  was  given.  Many  of  the  Mosaic  regulations 
were  merely  national.  Many  of  them  were  only  ap- 
propriate to  a  people  in  the  particular  condition  in 
which  the  Israelites  were.  The  same  is  true  of  many 
of  Paul's  instructions  and  precepts.  In  other  words 
they  are  teaching  that  expresses  God's  will  for  the 
people  to  which  they  were  given,  at  the  time  and 
under  the  circumstances  in  which  they  were. 

When  we  come  to  the  next  class,  devotional  com- 
positions, much  the  same  is  true  that  was  remarked 
about  the  previous  class.  They  are  the  real  compo- 
sition of  the  authors  by  whom  they  were  produced 
in  every  sense  yet  specially  aided  by  God  and  sent 
out  with  the  indorsement  of  God  as  fitting  expres- 
sions of  devotion,  prayer  and  praise.  Here  again, 
also,  we  must  remember  that  they  were  conditioned 
by  the  time  and  circumstances  in  which  they  were 


1 84  REVELATION 

produced.  What  would  be  a  suitable  frame  of  mind 
under  certain  circumstances  would  be  very  unappro- 
priate  under  certain  other  circumstances.  In  addi- 
tion to  that  we  must  recognize  that  there  are  different 
levels  of  virtue.  There  is  "  good  "  and  "  better," 
and  both  are  commendable  though  still  a  long  way 
short  of  "  the  best." 

For  instance,  justice  is  a  legitimate  standard.  No 
man  can  be  condemned  for  wishing  and  seeking  in 
lawful  ways  that  those  who  have  done  wrong  should 
be  adequately  punished  for  the  wrong  they  have 
done.  That  is  one  legitimate  level  or  standard  of 
virtue.  But  there  is  another  standard  which,  since 
Christian  times,  has  been  set  up  for  men  to  seek  to 
attain  to,  namely,  to  "  Love  your  enemies."  Desires, 
prayers  and  ascriptions  to  God  growing  out  of  the 
former  state  of  mind  would  be  legitimate  and  right. 
Desires  and  prayers  after  the  latter  standard  would 
also  be  right  and  would  be  higher  and  nobler  than 
the  other.  And  for  all  we  know  there  may  be  still  a 
higher  standard  than  either  of  these  set  some  time  in 
the  future,  inspiring  still  higher  and  nobler  desires 
and  prayers. 

OBJECTIONS   MADE   TO   SOME   PARTS 

The  principal  problem  in  regard  to  this  class  is  in 
those  prayers  or  hymns  in  the  book  of  Psalms  which 
seem  to  breathe  a  vindictive  and  intensely  revenge- 
ful spirit.  They  pray  for  the  severest  punishment 
or  total  destruction  to  the  enemies  of  the  writer. 
Acts  and  treatment  that  we  would  consider  exceed- 


THE   BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  185 

ingly  cruel  are  prayed  for.  This  is  thought  to  be 
inconsistent  with  the  will  of  God,  and  so  precluding 
us  from  counting  these  compositions  a  part  of  God's 
revelation. 

But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  what  is  prayed 
for  is  merely  a  just  and  adequate  punishment  for 
wrongs  committed.  In  perhaps  the  cruelest  passage 
of  all  it  is  distinctly  stated  that  the  cruel  treatment 
of  the  enemy  prayed  for  is  only  exactly  the  treat- 
ment that  enemy  had  actually  inflicted  on  the  writer 
and  his  friends  (Ps.  cxxxvii.  8,  9).  It  was  people 
who  had  suffered  such  almost  unthinkable  cruelty 
and  were  liable  to  suffer  such  cruelty  any  day  from 
enemies  that  were  all  around  them  and  constantly 
harassing  them,  by  whom  these  Psalms  were  writ- 
ten, and  to  whom  they  were  originally  given  as  ve- 
hicles of  prayer  and  devotion. 

On  the  other  hand  it  must  be  noted  that  in  most 
cases  the  writer  asks  for  God  to  inflict  the  deserved 
evil  upon  his  enemy  rather  than  that  he  may  be 
able  to  do  it  himself.  Or  if  he  prays  that  he  may 
be  successful  and  overthrow  his  adversary  it  is  on  the 
ground  that  his  cause  is  just,  and  the  adversary  is 
not  only  doing  injury  to  him  but  opposing  and  fight- 
ing against  God.  Now  it  is  the  most  fundamental 
teaching  of  all  morals  that  wrong-doing  should  be 
and  will  be  adequately  punished.  It  is  an  act  of 
faith,  when  that  wrong  is  against  one's  self,  to  look 
to  God  for  its  punishment  rather  than  to  plan  revenge 
one's  self.  And  it  is  an  act  of  faith,  when  one  is 
overwhelmed  with  enemies  entirely  too  strong  for 


1 86  REVELATION 

him  to  defend  himself  or  inflict  punishment,  for  a 
man  to  still  retain  his  faith  in  the  justice  of  God  and 
retain  his  courage  and  equilibrium  with  the  confi- 
dence that  God  will  inflict  the  punishment  that  he 
cannot,  or  will  some  time  enable  him  to  inflict  it. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  even  in  these  parts,  the 
standard  is  a  right  and  a  just  one,  and  one  that  im- 
plies a  high  development  of  certain  phases  of  true 
godly  character.  Other  phases  of  character  are  not 
developed  to  so  high  a  plane,  it  is  true,  but  a  man 
or  an  act  should  be  estimated  by  the  good  positively 
accomplished,  not  by  the  circumstance  that  some 
other  person  has  accomplised  something  that  he  has 
not.  If  a  man  is  a  great  scientist  he  should  be  es- 
teemed for  that,  even  if  he  is  not  also  a  great  musi- 
cian and  a  great  statesman.  A  scholar  who  has 
shown  great  proficiency  in  his  grammar  school 
studies  should  be  esteemed  for  that,  even  if  he  is 
densely  ignorant  of  much  that  the  university  gradu- 
ate knows.  The  man,  who  has  advanced  to  the 
plane  where  he  not  only  desires  justice  but  looks 
entirely  to  God  for  the  meting  out  of  justice  to  those 
that  have  injured  him,  has  made  considerable  ad- 
vance towards  the  character  that  God  desires  him  to 
have,  even  if  he  has  not  yet  advanced  to  the  plane 
where  he  can  leave  God  to  mete  out  the  deserved 
punishment  without  asking  for  it  and  keep  love  in 
his  heart  towards  the  injurer.  How  many  men, 
even  of  the  most  Christian  faith  to-day,  have  reached 
that  plane  ? 

To  say  that  these  compositions  are  a  revelation  of 


THE   BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  187 

the  will  of  God,  therefore,  does  not  mean  that  God 
has  therein  set  a  standard  of  the  perfect  character. 
It  does  not  even  mean  that  God  wishes  all  men  to 
have  the  feelings  and  express  the  desires  that  are 
here  expressed.  Men  who  can  do  better  than  what 
is  expressed  in  these  compositions  ought  to  do  bet- 
ter. The  time  may  come  when  the  race  will  have 
so  far  advanced,  and  the  conditions  of  society  have 
become  so  improved  that  for  all  the  injuries  they  are 
ever  liable  to  have  inflicted  upon  them  men  may  be 
able  to  maintain  the  state  of  feelings  called  for  in  the 
higher  standard.  Needless  to  say  that  time  is  un- 
fortunately still  in  the  future. 

What  is  meant  by  calling  these  compositions  a 
revelation  of  God's  will  is  that  when  the  person  un- 
der the  extreme  circumstances  of  cruel  injustice  and 
barbarous  oppression  was  able  thus  to  commit  his 
case  to  God,  and  look  to  God  for  justice  with  con- 
fidence that  God  would  mete  out  justice,  God  signi- 
fied His  approval  and  indorsement  of  what  that  man 
so  did  as  worthy  of  commendation.  To  the  men  of 
that  time,  of  similar  oppressive  circumstances  and  of 
a  similar  grade  of  development  it  would  be  a  suit- 
able standard  to  seek  to  attain  to,  one  adapted  to 
produce  more  practical  results  than  a  higher  one 
could.  To  the  men  of  all  time  too  it  might  remain 
as  a  noble  example  of  the  highest  level  to  which 
mere  justice  alone  could  attain. 

We  must  remember,  too,  that  these  imprecatory 
parts  are  a  comparatively  very  small  proportion  of 
this  literature,  which  all  is  on  a  very  high  plane  of 


1 88  REVELATION 

trust  and  loyalty  to  God  and  thankfulness  for 
favours,  with  contrition  for  faults.  The  man  even 
of  to-day,  whose  feelings  and  desires  would  all  aver- 
age up  to  the  general  level  of  what  is  expressed  in 
this  body  of  literature  would  be  on  a  very  much 
higher  plane  than  the  majority  of  even  Christian 
men  are  to-day. 

We  must  remember  again,  as  a  most  important 
consideration,  that  all  God's  purposes  are  practical, 
not  merely  theoretical, — to  achieve  results  in  uplift- 
ing men  rather  than  to  merely  formulate  a  theoret- 
ical exhibit  of  abstract  perfection.  We  could  not  im- 
agine Him  actually  advising  to  do  a  wrong  act,  but 
we  can  understand  His  persuading  men  to  seek  to 
attain  to  a  standard  that  is  comparatively  low  and 
imperfect,  when  that  standard  is  the  highest  there  is 
any  probability  of  their  ever  attaining  to,  and  is  im- 
measurably higher  than  their  natural  inclinations. 
We  find  this  principle  clearly  confirmed  by  Christ 
Himself  in  the  case  of  divorce  (see  Matt.  xix.  8) 
where  He  says  that  Moses,  impliedly  with  God's  ap- 
proval, allowed  an  evil  practice  to  continue  but  un- 
der the  greatest  restrictions  it  was  then  feasible  to 
put  upon  it.  To  tell  a  man  that  has  just  seen  his 
wife  and  daughters  debauched  and  his  little  infant 
snatched  from  his  arms  and  its  brains  dashed  out  on 
the  rocks, — to  tell  that  man  that  he  ought  to  do 
nothing  but  love  and  wish  well  to  the  fiends  that  did 
all  these  things  would  be  merely  breath  wasted  or 
worse.  But  to  tell  him  that  he  can  look  to  God  to 
fully  punish  the  men  that  have  wronged  him,  and 


THE  BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  1 89 

for  him  to  still  continue  his  perfect  trust  and  loyalty 
to  God,  is  to  tell  him  just  the  most  appropriate  and 
helpful  thing  possible  at  that  time,  and  this  is  just 
what  the  most  extreme  of  these  imprecatory  Psalms 
do. 

HISTORICAL  PART — GOD'S  INDORSEMENT 
CONSTITUTES  IT  REVELATION 

The  fourth  class  consists  of  the  historical  portions. 
These,  while  merely  the  record  of  events  that  oc- 
curred in  a  certain  nation  or  race,  are  called  a  reve- 
lation of  God,  on  the  ground,  ist.  That  the  events 
are  recorded  in  such  a  way  as  to  specifically  call  at- 
tention to  the  working  out  of  God's  purposes  in  and 
through  those  events  and  His  directing  control  over 
them.  2d,  That  the  record  is  of  an  enterprise  in 
which  God  in  a  special  way  revealed  His  will  with 
regard  to  many  things  both  by  the  events  and  in 
special  dealings  accompanying  them.  3d,  That  the 
written  record  has  God's  indorsement  to  go  forth  as 
a  competent  statement  of  the  nature  of  God's  activ- 
ity behind  human  phenomena  and  of  His  will 
with  regard  to  various  lines  of  conduct  and  of  na- 
tional polity. 

In  all  the  various  classes  of  revelation  above,  we 
have  given  as  one  and  perhaps  the  most  important 
ground  for  considering  them  a  revelation,  the 
feature  of  God's  indorsement  for  them  to  go  forth  as 
an  expression  of  His  will  in  the  respects  named. 
This  of  course  is  a  question  of  fact  to  be  determined 
by  theological  and  historical  criticism.  If  He  has 
never  given  any  such  indorsement  then  all  claims 


190  REVELATION 

based  upon  having  such  indorsement  must  be  dis- 
allowed. But  if  He  has  given  such  indorsement  to 
the  finished  product  the  method  of  its  production,  and 
all  other  matters  would  be  of  minor  moment. 
Whatever  its  origin  or  the  character  of  the  men  that 
wrote  it,  if  it  has  such  indorsement  it  is  so  far  forth 
just  as  rightly  to  be  considered  God's  revelation  as 
if  it  had  all  been  written  with  His  finger  miracu- 
lously upon  tables  of  stone. 

The  Church  believes  that  it  has  such  indorsement 
and  that  God  has  intended  and  directed  men  to  use 
it  as  giving  His  will  in  the  ways  and  senses  named 
above.  There  is  not  space  here,  nor  is  it  appro- 
priate to  discuss  that  matter  now  or  attempt  to  set 
forth  the  grounds  of  this  belief.  Among  the  sec- 
ondary or  circumstantial  evidences  are  (i)  the  fact 
that  the  Christians  of  all  ages  have  felt  satisfied  in 
considering  it  to  have  God's  authority ;  (2)  wherever 
it  has  been  so  accepted  it  has  had  enormous  influ- 
ence in  uplifting  and  establishing  the  character ; 
(3)  in  general  it  has  had  influence  for  good  in  the 
world  immeasurably  beyond  any  book  of  merely 
human  authority,  (4)  and  finally,  in  its  selection 
from  among  contemporary  literature  there  has 
always  been  noted  in  it  such  a  marked  superiority 
and  difference  as  to  put  it  necessarily  in  a  different 
class  from  any  other  works  of  the  age  or  ages  in 
which  it  was  written.  These  are  only  secondary  or 
circumstantial  reasons.  There  are  many  other 
direct  and  positive  reasons  alleged  to  show  that  if 
God  has  ever  exerted  any  directive  control  upon  the 


THE   BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  19I 

religion  of  men  He  has  certainly  indicated  that 
these  writings  are  to  be  used  as  an  authoritative 
statement  of  His  will  and  a  guide  for  life. 

THE   CREATION   STORIES 

Among  the  various  questions  that  are  raised  with 
regard  to  this  fourth  class,  or  the  historical  writings 
of  the  Bible,  we  may  take  space  to  notice  only  one 
or  two  that  seem  to  have  some  connection  with  the 
scientific  point  of  view.  The  first  is  a  question 
much  more  discussed  a  few  decades  ago  than  now, 
and  concerns  the  opening  chapters  of  the  book 
of  Genesis.  These  chapters  seem  to  give  an  ac- 
count of  the  beginnings  of  the  world,  of  the  human 
race  and  of  human  society.  It  used  to  be  claimed 
that  this  account  was  contrary  to  what  science  has 
found  out  as  to  the  nature  of  those  origins.  Later 
study,  however,  has  shown  that  the  supposed  con- 
tradiction rested  upon  an  arbitrary,  though  tradi- 
tional interpretation  of  those  chapters,  and  an 
erroneous  conception  of  the  findings  of  science  in 
some  respects. 

In  particular  it  was  claimed  that  the  conception  of 
the  human  race  being  derived  from  a  single  pair, 
Adam  and  Eve,  is  inconsistent  wath  the  evolutional 
origin  of  the  human  race  in  common  with  all  other 
animals  and  forms  of  life.  Exception  was  taken  to 
the  account  of  the  creation  of  the  world  in  the  first 
chapter,  to  the  origin  and  nature  of  sin  in  the 
second  chapter  and  to  the  general  picture  of  primi- 
tive life  as  being  pure  and  innocent  while  science 


192  REVELATION 

points  to  a  primitive  state  of  the  densest  and  lowest 
savagery. 

In  considering  these  questions  we  must  first  bear 
in  mind  a  fact  that  was  not  formerly  recognized  but 
which  late  Hebrew  scholars  have  pointed  out, 
namely,  that  these  opening  chapters  of  Genesis  are 
poetry.  It  would  be  utterly  fallacious  to  interpret 
the  words  of  a  poem  in  the  same  way  that  we  would 
a  scientific  report  or  historical  criticism.  We  must 
take  other  poems,  especially  other  Hebrew  poems, 
and  by  comparing  them  together  learn  how  we  are 
to  interpret  what  is  written  here.  Take  for  in- 
stance the  eighteenth,  forty-sixth,  sixtieth,  eight- 
ieth, one  hundred  and  fourteenth  or  any  of  a  large 
number  of  the  other  Psalms  and  see  how  the 
Hebrew  poets  used  language  to  express  their 
thoughts.  No  one  imagines  that  God  is  a  huge 
monster  blowing  fire  out  of  His  mouth  and  smoke 
out  of  His  nose  as  Psalm  xviii.  8  seems  to  declare, 
nor  does  any  one  suppose  that  the  writer  intended 
to  teach  that  He  was  such  a  being.  And  yet  he 
was  expressing  a  great  truth  and  expressing  it  in  a 
vivid,  forcible  way  far  more  effective  than  a  cold 
scientific  statement  would  have  been. 

It  is  a  popular  mistake,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
suppose  that  because  a  composition  is  a  poem  no 
value  can  be  given  to  it  as  a  narrative  of  facts, — it 
must  necessarily  be  rated  as  merely  a  creation  of 
fancy  and  imagination.  There  are  poems  built 
entirely  out  of  imagination,  as  also  there  are  prose 
works  of  the  same  character, — novels  and  romances. 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  1 93 

But  a  poem  may  also  be  used  as  a  form  for  relating 
actual  occurrences,  as  was  often  done  by  the  ancient 
bards  and  minstrels.  Very  often  a  poem  gives  in 
the  main  outline  historical  facts  though  the  minuter 
details  are  fictitious,  as  for  instance  in  Shakespeare's 
historical  plays  and  in  many  epic  poems.  Some- 
times again  the  motif  or  underlying  thought  of  the 
poem  is  a  great  moral  fact,  though  all  the  incidents 
are  imaginary  as  in  Milton's  "Paradise  Lost"  or 
Dante's  "  Inferno."  In  all  these  the  poem  expresses 
great  truths  only  in  different  ways.  These  prefatory 
poems  might  be  of  any  one  of  these  classes  without 
being  inconsistent  with  the  character  of  the  book  as 
a  revelation  of  God  teaching  great  moral  truths.  It 
is  the  province  of  criticism  to  determine  by  internal 
and  other  evidence  to  which  of  these  classes  they 
belong. 

When  we  examine  the  extant  old  Hebrew  poetry 
we  find  in  the  Psalms  instances  of  all  three  classes. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  seventy-eighth  Psalm,  the  poem 
is  made  up  almost  entirely  of  facts  recorded  else- 
where in  prose  history.  Some  of  the  Psalms  belong 
to  the  second  class  where  the  general  outline  con- 
sists of  historical  facts  though  much  freedom  is  ex- 
ercised in  expressing  the  minute  details.  In  other 
Psalms,  as  the  eighteenth,  or  in  the  seventh  and 
eighth  chapters  of  Proverbs  great  moral  facts  are 
expressed  by  fictitious  or  symbolic  representations. 
We  would  have  good  precedent,  therefore,  for  sup- 
posing that  these  prefatory  poems  might  be  any  one 
of  these  three  kinds.     There  would  be  no  obstacle  to 


194  REVELATION 

considering  them  close  and  accurate  narratives  of 
concrete  facts,  if  their  internal  evidence  points  that 
way.  On  the  other  hand  if  the  internal  and  other 
evidence  proved  them  to  be  the  figurative  and  sym- 
bolic representation  of  great  moral  truths  that  would 
be  no  disparagement  of  their  truth  or  obstacle  to 
including  them  in  a  divine  book  that  contains  many 
other  poems  of  the  same  nature  and  form. 

The  first  of  these  poems,  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  has  the  creation  for  its  subject.  In  this 
chapter,  the  old  objection  based  upon  a  literal  inter- 
pretation of  the  word  "day"  in  conflict  with  the 
teachings  of  geology  as  to  the  age  of  the  world, 
which  was  very  acute  half  a  century  ago,  when  the 
study  of  geology  was  first  becoming  popular,  has 
now  subsided  almost  to  a  curious  memory.  On  the 
other  hand  many  are  now  impressed  with  the  strik- 
ing resemblance  in  the  order  of  events  as  recorded 
in  the  poem  and  as  taught  by  geological  research. 
This  is  the  more  remarkable  as  it  is  not  the  order 
that  would  most  naturally  suggest  itself,  and  is  not 
the  order  found  in  any  of  the  cosmogonies  contained 
in  the  mythologies  of  so  many  of  the  other  nations. 

A  conspicuous  instance  of  this  is  the  order  which 
is  given  for  the  appearance  of  forms  of  life.  The 
order  is, — First,  vegetation,  second,  marine  forms 
and  birds,  and  third,  land  animals,  and  last  man. 
Of  course,  to  see  the  correspondence  we  must  con- 
sider that  the  picture  in  the  poem  refers  to  the 
introduction  of  that  particular  class  of  life  forms  in 
that  order,  not  the  appearance  of  all  the  forms  that 


THE   BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  1 95 

eventually  developed  in  that  class,  before  any  of  the 
next  class  appeared.  Really  in  all  three  classes 
there  are  new  varieties  if  not  even  new  species  yet 
being  developed,  but  the  order  in  which  these  differ- 
ent classes  of  life  first  appeared  was  just  as  the 
poem  gives  it.  A  rather  singular  touch  is  the 
inclusion  of  marine  animals  and  flying  creatures  in 
the  same  class,  forms  that  most  people  naturally 
would  suppose  to  be  almost  the  farthest  apart,  but 
which  the  researches  of  geology  have  shown  are 
really  the  most  closely  related. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  claim  for  these  and  other 
remarkable  correspondences  anything  more  than  a 
very  interesting  coincidence,  as  the  record  is  not 
intended,  and  does  not  purport  to  be  a  scientific  de- 
scription of  the  process  of  creation,  but  merely  a 
very  graphic  presentation  of  God  as  the  creator  of 
all  things.  That  is  the  one  lesson  that  is  sought  to 
be  taught  by  it,  and  other  things  are  merely  inci- 
dental. But  this  remarkable  coincidence  certainly 
does  preclude  that  almost  contemptuous  criticism  of 
the  record  that  some  people  a  generation  ago  were 
in  the  habit  of  making,  from  a  wrong  and  arbitrary 
interpretation  of  the  passages.  A  scientist,  knowing 
all  the  facts  that  the  latest  researches  have  de- 
veloped, if  he  wished  to  make  a  vivid  and  graphic 
picture  of  the  theological  conception  of  God  as  the 
creator  could  hardly  do  better  than  to  follow  pre- 
cisely the  lines  and  the  imagery  used  here  in  this 
oldest  of  poems.  In  almost  any  other  instance  we 
would  have  no  hesitation  in  afifirming  that  a  poet 


196  REVELATION 

must  have  had  the  scientific  facts  before  him  when 
he  composed  such  imagery  and  arranged  the  order 
of  the  poem. 

When  we  come  to  the  next  poem,  beginning  with 
the  fourth  verse  of  the  second  chapter,  a  number  of 
criticisms  are  sometimes  made.  Objection  is  taken 
to  the  so-called  "  anthropomorphic  "  presentation  of 
God.  The  conception  of  the  human  race  as  begin- 
ning with  a  single  pair  is  said  to  be  contrary  to  the 
teaching  of  evolution  that  one  species  evolves  by 
gradual  and  imperceptible  steps  from  some  species 
just  below  it.  Again  it  is  claimed  that  the  first 
beginnings  of  the  human  race  were  in  the  most 
brutal  and  abject  savagery,  and  entirely  different 
from  the  idyllic  ^jicture  of  innocence  given  in  this 
passage.  Tb::se  and  similar  objections  are  some- 
times urged  iven  by  persons  who  hold  to  the  useful- 
ness and  e'  en  inspiration  of  these  passages,  as  con- 
veying vi""ld  and  valuable  moral  lessons. 

We  could  indeed  believe  this  to  be  a  valuable 
moral  lesson,  worthy  a  place  in  an  inspired  religious 
book,  if  it  were  made  up  entirely  of  allegorical  and 
figurative  pictures  of  moral  truths,  and  there  were 
no  historical  facts  of  any  kind  forming  even  the 
basis  of  its  incidents.  There  are  other  poems  of 
that  kind  in  the  Bible  that  are  accepted  without 
hesitation,  as  for  instance  parts  of  the  chapters  of 
Proverbs  referred  to,  and  probably  a  number  of 
other  compositions.  But  a  fair  and  just  interpreta- 
tion and  examination  will,  I  believe,  show  that  none 
of    these   objections   or   criticisms   are   really   valid 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  197 

against  it.  There  is  no  valid  objection,  at  least  on 
the  scientific  side,  to  considering  the  acts  and  events 
portrayed  to  be  in  part,  or  even  in  whole,  historical 
facts. 

ANTHROPOMORPHIC  CONCEPTIONS  OF  GOD 

In  the  first  place, — as  to  the  so-called  "  anthropo- 
morphic" representation  of  God,  both  here  and  all 
through  the  Bible, — what  higher  kind  of  representa- 
tion could  we  make  of  Him  ?  It  is  well  understood 
now,  and  doubtless  was  more  or  less  understood 
from  the  beginning,  that  God  really  far  transcends 
our  highest  conceptions  of  Him.  But,  as  has  been 
often  pointed  out,  our  highest  conception  is  an  an- 
thropomorphic conception.  The  highest  kind  of 
acts  that  we  know  of  or  can  form  any  conception  of, 
are  the  rational,  mental  and  volitional  acts  of  men, 
or  acts  of  that  fundamental  nature.  The  highest 
kind  of  being  that  we  know  of  is  an  intellectual, 
free-willing  man  and  the  highest  kind  of  being  that 
we  would  be  able  to  imagine  or  conceive  of  would 
therefore  be  a  being  of  that  fundamental  nature. 
Any  other  description  of  a  being  higher  would 
be  a  form  of  words  without  a  mental  picture 
or  conception  to  correspond.  The  conception  of 
merely  all  pervasive  force,  or  tendency  or  law  or 
any  of  those  expressions  that  some  persons  insist  on 
as  the  most  competent  conception  of  the  highest  be- 
ing, is  immeasurably  lower  than  the  conception  of 
what  we  know  a  man's  nature  to  be,  increased  and 
expanded  to  the  required  dimensions  or  infinity. 


198  REVELATION 

Not  only  is  this  conception  of  God  in  terms  of 
man's  nature  the  most  correct  and  competent  from 
a  scientific  standpoint,  but  if  the  revelation  or  the 
lesson  is  addressed  to  men,  especially  to  men  of 
very  medium  philosophical  education,  the  only  way 
the  acts  of  God  can  be  made  vivid  and  intelligible, 
so  as  to  have  ethical  force  and  value,  is  to  portray 
them  in  terms  of  something  known,  namely,  of  the 
activities  of  men.  Nor  is  there  impropriety  in  this 
even  dynamically  considered.  For  though  God  is 
omnipotent  and  His  acts  infinite  and  eternal,  yet  the 
part  of  any  act  that  affects  a  small  and  finite  man 
can  only  be  a  finite  part  of  the  infinite  act,  and  in  as 
far  as  he  can  understand  that  act  of  God,  being 
small,  he  can  only  understand  a  finite  part  of  it.  It 
is  therefore  both  necessary  and  proper,  if  any  repre- 
sentation is  to  be  made  to  man  of  the  acts  of  God, 
that  they  should  be  represented  in  the  form  of  acts 
of  a  finite  character,  and  the  most  appropriate  form 
would  be  that  of  the  highest  species  of  acts  we  know 
of,  namely,  the  acts  of  men. 

Moreover,  that  form  of  imagery  is  both  beautiful 
and  expressive.  Take  for  instance  one  of  the  very 
first  statements  in  the  whole  book  : — "  The  Spirit  of 
God  brooding  upon  the  face  of  the  waters "  (Gen. 
i.  2).  A  stickler  for  bald  scientific  terms  might  in- 
sist that  in  describing  this  most  primitive  stage  in 
the  great  primordial  "  Fire  Mist "  when  the  process 
that  was  to  develop  motion,  order  and  all  the  suc- 
cessively evolving  worlds  and  systems  was  only  just 
about  to  begin,  we  would  more  properly  say,  "  There 


THE  BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  I99 

somehow  came  to  be  a  tendency  towards  hetero- 
geneity and  towards  order  in  this  primitive  chaos," 
or  a  law  and  energy,  a  process,  a  great  movement, 
or  something  of  that  kind,  was  present  there.  Such 
a  terminology  may  appeal  to  those  who  have  a 
special  fondness  for  such  vague  and  indeterminate 
expressions,  but  really  the  content  of  any  or  all  of 
them  is  immeasurably  below  that  of  the  expression 
used  here, — an  infinite  something,  enough  greater 
than  all  the  whole  great  universe  process  to  have 
produced  it  all,  and  yet  of  a  nature  comparable  to 
the  thinking,  knowing,  feeling  and  willing  mind  of 
man,  in  imminent  contact  with  that  vast  expanse  of 
being  just  begun  to  be,  and  as  it  were  vitalizing  or 
informing  into  it  the  potentialities  and  directive  tend- 
encies that  should  start  the  great  universe  process 
and  begin  the  great  course  of  universe  evolution.  I 
question  if  the  human  mind  is  capable  of  conceiving 
a  greater  thought  than  is  contained  in  that  little 
primitive  statement. 

Or  take  again  the  statement  in  Genesis  ii.  8  that 
God  planted  a  lovely  garden  and  gave  it  for  a  home 
to  the  man  He  had  made.  A  very  pretty  picture  if 
it  was  a  prosperous  Hebrew  farmer  providing  a 
pleasant  home  for  his  favourite  son,  but  very  inap- 
propriate, we  are  told,  to  be  spoken  of  God,  whose 
acts  are  infinite  and  eternal  moving  the  whole  uni- 
verse with  a  single  impulse  and  embracing  a  million 
years  in  a  single  thought.  That,  however,  does  not 
take  into  account  that  it  can  be  only  an  infinitesi- 
mal part  of  that  infinite  act  that  can  impinge  upon 


200  REVELATION 

the  little  finite  being,  man,  and  so  can  be  properly 
said  to  have  been  acted  with  reference  to  him.  You 
may  tell  me  truly  that  the  ocean  is  a  vast,  deep,  tre- 
mendous expanse  of  water,  with  character  and  con- 
tour so  extended,  intricate  and  mysterious  that  I  can 
form  no  adequate  conception  of  it  at  all.  But  that 
does  not  prohibit  me  from  rightly  saying  that  the 
cove  and  rocky  pools  and  sandy  beach  before  my 
seashore  cottage,  where  my  children  wade  and  play, 
is  really  the  ocean.  It  is  precisely  the  ocean  pre- 
senting itself  to  me  in  a  form  and  measure  that  I 
can  see,  know  and  enjoy  it.  This  is  true,  though 
all  the  other  about  its  mysterious  vastness  and  un- 
knowable intricacy  is  also  true  at  the  same  time. 
To  the  man  who  was  intended  to  enjoy  it,  though 
the  act  was  an  infinite  act  embracing  the  whole  uni- 
verse, and  the  impulse  that  caused  it  was  an  eternal 
impulse  put  forth  at  the  beginning  of  time,  it  was 
just  as  truly  God  planting  that  garden  and  putting 
him  into  it,  as  though  that  was  the  only  act  that 
God  did,  and  which  He  accomplished  at  the  ex- 
pense of  toil  and  trouble. 

Moreover,  the  great  lesson  that  was  desired  to  be 
conveyed  by  the  account  was  the  lesson  of  God's 
personal  and  intimate  care  for  men, — a  true  and 
most  important  lesson, — and  that  lesson  could  only 
be  impressed  by  exhibiting  this  act  in  the  littleness 
of  human  proportions.  Especially  so  to  the  simple 
minded  people  of  that  age  to  whom  it  was  origi- 
nally addressed, — and  to  nine-tenths  of  the  people  of 
this  age  too,  for  that  matter. 


THE  BIBLE   AS  A   REVELATION  20I 

The  same  principle  illustrated  here  applies  to 
countless  passages  all  through  the  Bible  where  acts 
of  God  are  referred  to  in  the  familiar  language  that 
we  would  use  for  the  acts  of  men.  In  the  first 
place,  to  impress  men  that  there  can  be  and  is  a 
real  bond  of  sympathy  and  fellowship  between  God 
and  them,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  express 
God's  acts  and  feelings  towards  them  in  terms  of 
human  activity  and  feeling.  Any  other  form  or  ex- 
pression or  language  would  have  precisely  the  op- 
posite effect  and  make  men  feel  such  a  fundamental 
and  impassible  difference  between  God  and  them- 
selves that  they  would  not  believe  any  fellowship  to 
be  possible  and  so  would  never  seek  to  have  it. 
We  may  notice  here  that  it  was  precisely  for  that 
reason  that  God  revealed  Himself  in  human  form  in 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  men  might  come  to 
feel  the  possibility  of  fellowship  with  Him.  If  that 
object  was  so  important  as  to  warrant  so  great  an 
act  as  that  it  certainly  is  not  strange  that  other  acts 
of  God,  intended  chiefly  to  foster  a  feeling  of  fellow- 
ship, should  be  narrated  and  described  in  the  only 
kind  of  language  capable  of  fostering  that  feeling. 
For  we  must  recognize  that  the  chief  reason  in  all 
God's  revelations  and  special  acts  towards  men  is 
not  to  supply  some  lack  in  the  general  course  of 
natural  events  or  even  to  reveal  some  truth  that 
could  not  otherwise  be  learned,  but  precisely  to 
make  possible  and  increase  on  man's  part  the  rela- 
tionship of  fellowship  and  friendly  communion. 

Nor   is    it  improper  to  represent  acts  of  the  su- 


202  REVELATION 

preme,  eternal  and  infinite  God  as  of  this  small 
individualistic  and  defined  character.  An  activity 
that  may  rightly  be  defined  as  infinite  in  its  extent 
and  application  may  as  part  of  its  result  affect  some 
very  small  result  concerning  some  small  individual, 
and  since  it  was  intended  that  that  as  well  as  all  the 
other  infinite  amount  of  results  should  be  produced 
it  is  perfectly  proper  to  say  that  act  produced  that 
small  result  just  as  much  as  if  that  was  the  only 
result  it  produced.  Gravitation  is  a  great  some- 
thing extending  out  constantly  from  every  part  of 
the  universe  to  every  other  part  of  the  universe,  but 
yet  when  a  pebble  or  a  rain-drop  falls  we  say  it  was 
an  act  of  gravitation,  just  as  much  as  if  gravitation 
was  a  little  something  located  only  there  and  doing 
that  one  thing.  So  God's  activity  may  be  vast,  af- 
fecting the  whole  universe  constantly,  and  yet  also 
just  as  truly  feeding  the  sparrow,  painting  the  lily, 
converting  a  Saul,  rescuing  an  Elijah  or  watching 
over  an  infant  in  its  sleep,  as  though  he  were  only  a 
small  finite  agent  with  only  just  that  one  thing  to  do. 

PICTURE  OF  PRIMITIVE  MAN 

One  of  the  objections  often  made  against  this  pic- 
ture of  primitive  life  is  that  it  is  too  idyllic,  too  inno- 
cent and  beautiful,  whereas  it  is  claimed  that  the 
teaching  of  evolution  as  to  the  beginnings  of  the 
race  is  just  the  opposite.  It  is  claimed  that  evolu- 
tion teaches  that  the  beginnings  of  humanity  must 
have  been  in  the  most  brutal  and  debased  savagery, 
much  lower  that  the  lowest  races  of  savages  that  we 


THE   BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  203 

now  know,  and  some  of  them  are  very  low  and  sav- 
age. The  Bible  account,  it  is  charged,  pictures  man 
at  first  as  much  higher,  purer  and  more  perfect  than 
any  men  are  now,  and  that  they  descended  from 
that  high  state  to  their  present  condition. 

But  we  must  distinguish  between  what  the  ac- 
count actually  says  and  what  our  imagination  adds 
to  the  picture.  Also  we  must  distinguish  between 
what  evolution  actually  teaches  and  what  some  one 
particular  theory  or  supposition  of  some  certain 
evolutionist  teaches.  Granting  the  most  that  the 
fullest  and  most  thoroughgoing  evolution  hypoth- 
esis claims  as  to  the  continuity  of  the  evolution 
process,  granting  that  man  as  well  as  all  other  high 
forms  developed  by  an  unbroken  process  from  the 
first  primitive  cells,  even  setting  aside  entirely  all 
claim  to  a  break  in  the  process  and  a  special  crea- 
tion or  something  different  added  in  a  special  way 
in  the  production  of  man,  it  still  does  not  necessarily 
follow  that  primitive  man  was  the  degraded,  vile, 
despisable  creature  that  these  objectors  would  pic- 
ture him.  None  of  the  other  species  of  animals  are 
degraded,  vile  and  despisable  in  their  natural  state. 
For  the  most  part  they  are  comparatively  perfect 
and  noble.  The  lion,  the  stag,  the  eagle,  the  night- 
ingale are  almost  types  of  nobility  and  excellence. 
In  relation  to  the  circumstances  in  which  their  lives 
are  to  be  spent  they  are  good  and  admirable. 

Nor  are  they  necessarily  offensive  in  those  points 
which  are  counted  distinctively  human  virtues.  Not 
all  animals  are  ferocious  and  blood-thirsty.     Sheep, 


204  REVELATION 

deer,  and  in  general  the  herbivorous  animals  are 
gende  and  harmless.  And  many  anatomists  claim 
that  the  form  of  men's  teeth  declares  them  to  be 
naturally  herbivorous  animals.  But  more  than  that, 
many  of  the  lower  animals  excel  in  some  of  even  the 
higher  virtues.  Many  animals  and  birds  are  what 
we  would  call  in  human  relations  monogamous  and 
strictly  chaste  and  constant,  choosing  a  single  partner 
and  remaining  faithful  and  constant  to  that  one 
through  life.  There  is  nothing  in  the  lives  of  lower 
animals  that  corresponds  to  the  human  vice  of 
drunkenness  or  addiction  to  other  hurtful  drugs. 
And  again,  on  the  positive  side,  where,  even  in  hu- 
man society,  will  we  find  anything  to  rival  the  faith- 
fulness, devotion  and  loyalty  sometimes  seen  in  an 
Arabian  horse  or  a  Scotch  collie  dog?  True  these 
last  mentioned  virtues  were  brought  out  by  domesti- 
cation, but  they  must  have  been  possibilities  in  the 
character  of  the  animal  none  the  less.  And  domes- 
tication is  only  a  special  line  of  directed  evolution, 
just  as  truly  evolutionary  in  its  essence  as  any  other 
evolution. 

There  is  nothing  therefore  in  the  teaching  of  evo- 
lution that  shuts  us  up  to  considering  that  the  prim- 
itive man  was  a  low,  ferocious,  vile  and  despisable 
creature.  Nor  does  the  fact  that  some  or  all  the 
varieties  and  species  of  the  monkey  family,  the  ones 
considered  nearest  in  affinity  to  men,  have  many 
base  and  repulsive  characteristics  necessarily  imply 
that  primitive  man  also  had  those  characteristics. 
On  the  contrary  it  would  be  more  plausible  to  sup- 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  205 

pose  that  it  was  just  because  for  some  reason  he 
did  not  have  those  undesirable  tendencies  he  ad- 
vanced to  a  higher  grade  of  Hfe  and  it  was  those 
characteristics,  at  least  in  part,  that  prevented  the 
advance  of  the  other  members  of  the  family  and 
fixed  them  in  their  present  grade  of  living. 

Nor  again  is  it  a  legitimate  argument  that  because 
we  can  find  savage  races  now  that  are  ferocious, 
cruel  and  have  many  other  bad  qualities,  therefore 
all  men  must  have  developed  up  from  that  state  and 
at  one  time  been  in  that  condition.  In  the  first 
place  that  is  precisely  the  question  at  issue,  whether 
or  not  there  has  been,  as  this  record  pictures,  a 
"fall"  or  lapsing  into  a  lower  state  at  a  certain 
stage  of  their  history.  Such  lapses  and  deteriora- 
tions are  quite  common  in  the  history  of  all  the  rest 
of  the  animal  species,  and  why  should  it  not  be 
found  in  the  human  species  ?  Indeed  the  very  fun- 
damental law  of  evolution  is  that  there  is  a  constant 
tendency  to  variation  in  all  directions,  those  that 
make  for  deterioration  as  well  as  those  that  make 
for  advance.  It  is  because  those  individuals  or 
communities  that  have  happened  to  make  the  varia- 
tions in  useful  directions  have  more  power  to  survive 
and  do  survive  while  the  others  die  out,  that  there  is 
a  permanent  advance.  These  others  may  survive 
by  isolation  and  favourable  circumstances  for  a 
while,  however,  or  because  their  variation,  though 
on  the  whole  disadvantageous,  yet  has  in  it  some  ele- 
ments of  advantage  under  certain  circumstances. 

As  we  take  a  broad  view  of  human  history,  as  far 


206  REVELATION 

back  as  we  can  find  records,  we  find  that  just  pre- 
cisely that  has  been  the  actual  process.  The  races 
or  parts  of  races  that  have  had  some  variation  in  a 
useful  direction  have  become  dominant  and  not  only 
the  other  races  whose  variation  happened  to  be  in 
non-useful  directions  went  to  the  wall,  but  after  a 
while  this  very  dominant  race,  or  parts  of  it,  devel- 
oped variations  of  a  harmful  tendency  and  began  to 
perish,  while  some  other  part  of  that  race  or  some 
neighbouring  race  developed  useful  variations  and  be- 
came dominant.  Thus  there  has  always  been  around 
the  highest  civilization  a  fringe  of  retrograding,  de- 
teriorating civilization,  that  has  been  sloughed  off  be- 
cause it  had  developed  disadvantageous  tendencies. 

Why  then  should  it  be  thought  more  logical  to 
take  these  sloughed  off,  decadent  civilizations  or 
savage  races  as  the  standard  of  the  central  type  from 
which  the  progressive  variations  have  been  made 
than  to  take  the  other  extreme,  the  race  that  has 
made  the  most  favourable  variation  and  is  now  in  the 
highest  place?  Both  these  are  extreme  members,  and 
the  primitive  condition  is  to  be  properly  looked  for 
between  them,  a  condition  of  life  that  while  it  did 
not  have  the  highly  developed  virtues  and  attain- 
ments that  have  brought  these  races  to  this  high 
plane,  on  the  other  hand  also  did  not  have  the  de- 
basing, debauching  or  savage  tendencies  that  have 
kept  those  other  races  from  advancing  or  have  pulled 
them  down  after  they  were  once  well  advanced. 

Again,  as  indicated  above,  many  objectors  read 
into  this  primitive  picture  many  features  that  are  not 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  207 

in  it  at  all.  Their  conception  is  really  derived  from 
Milton's  "Paradise  Lost"  and  not  from  this  Bible 
poem.  Or,  as  Christians,  they  very  naturally  con- 
ceive that  the  innocent,  unfallen  man  must  be  better 
than  the  best  of  the  partially  sinful  men  that  they 
know,  and  so  have  in  mind  something  nobler  than 
the  best  Christian  man  that  they  know  or  have 
heard  of,  and  picture  this  first  unfallen  man  as  of 
that  character.  The  Biblical  poem,  however,  makes 
no  such  claim  and  paints  no  such  picture.  Read 
Longfellow's  Hiawatha,  or  some  of  the  accounts  of 
early  intercourse  with  Indian  and  other  uncivilized 
races,  and  there  is  nothing  in  this  Biblical  picture 
that  is  out  of  harmony  with  the  better  features  of  the 
life  and  character  pictured  there.  Indeed  to  some 
extent  the  atmosphere  seems  to  be  the  same.  The 
primitive  man  is  pictured  only  as  in  close  touch  with 
nature  and  the  animal  creatures, — as  dressing  and 
eating  the  natural  fruits  of  a  garden  and  giving 
names  to  and  seeking  companionship  with  the  lower 
animals,  precisely  the  status  of  the  Indians  and  other 
so-called  savage  races.  On  the  moral  side  he  is  at 
best  but  negative,  or  rather  entirely  colourless,  as  no 
incident  has  yet  occurred  to  develop  or  express  any 
moral  character.  Indeed  if  that  be  a  virtue  he  can 
hardly  be  credited  with  even  that  virtue,  for  at  the 
first  opportunity  he  does  develop  moral  tendency  of 
a  wrong  kind. 

ORIGIN    OF  SIN 
As  to  the  so-called  "  fall,"  if  we  take  the  actually 
recorded  picture  itself,  and  not  some  fanciful  scene 


208  REVELATION 

that  some  one  has  imagined,  we  have  a  picture  not 
at  all  out  of  harmony  with  the  general  principles 
and  course  of  evolution.  The  fact  itself,  which  is 
stated  here  in  poetic  language,  is  that  men  emerged 
into  a  state  of  moral  consciousness,  and  the  change 
was  precipitated  by  an  immoral  act.  That  would 
be  the  most  natural  and  obvious  translation  into  the 
exact  language  of  science  of  the  poetical  concep- 
tions "Forbidden  Fruit"  and  "Tree  of  the  Knowl- 
edge of  Good  and  Evil." 

Now  we  know  that  at  some  point  in  the  evolution 
men  did  first  emerge  into  the  state  of  moral  con- 
sciousness. There  was  a  time  when  that  moral  con- 
sciousness did  not  exist,  when  they  had  no  knowl- 
edge or  feeling  of  moral  distinctions.  The  lower 
animals,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  do  not  have  any 
such  knowledge  or  feeling  now.  The  progenitors  of 
men,  when  in  that  stage,  did  not  have  it.  Men  do 
have  it  now.  Therefore  there  must  have  been  some 
time  when  they  first  acquired  it.  Studying  child- 
nature,  we  find  that  often  a  whole  new  range  of 
feeling  and  interest,  a  whole  new  faculty  as  it  were, 
will  suddenly  break  upon  the  child  consciousness. 
Especially  will  some  very  intense  experience  pro- 
duce such  fundamental  changes  suddenly  and  at 
once.  If  the  development  of  the  individual  is  a 
reduplication  of  the  development  of  the  race,  it 
would  not  be  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  this 
sense  of  moral  distinctions, — this  moral  conscious- 
ness,— developed  at  some  time  suddenly  in  the 
human  race. 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  209 

And  if  we  were  to  inquire  what  might  be  a  possi- 
ble cause  to  bring  about  its  sudden  development, 
we  find  that  other  faculties  often  emerge  suddenly 
into  consciousness  through  some  sudden  object  of 
resistance  or  occasion  for  their  exercise.  Thus  a 
child  learns  of  heat  or  of  pain  by  burning  or  bump- 
ing itself.  Its  first  development  of  fear  comes 
through  experiencing  some  fright  or  danger.  In  the 
same  way  a  passion  for  music,  art,  oratory  or  the  like, 
sometimes  first  arises  in  the  soul  through  some 
intense  experience  of  the  object  of  that  passion.  In 
the  same  way  it  would  be  natural  to  suppose  that 
the  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  the  moral  conscious- 
ness, would  first  arise  in  the  human  race  or  human 
individual  through  some  conspicuous  and  direct 
breaking  of  something  recognized  as  a  reasonable 
restraint.  How  could  such  an  event  be  more  aptly 
and  beautifully  expressed  in  poetical  language 
than  by  just  the  form  of  expression  that  is  used 
here  :  Breaking  the  direct  prohibition  of  God  and 
eating  of  "  The  Tree  of  the  Knowledge  of  Good  and 
Evil"? 

Of  course  this  might  have  been  by  some  act  as 
instantaneous  as  the  plucking  of  fruit  from  a  tree 
and  eating  it.  The  whole  destiny  of  the  world  has 
more  than  once  been  influenced  by  single  acts  as 
short  and  instantaneous  as  that.  But  the  language 
does  not  require  that  interpretation  necessarily. 
Viewed  in  historical  perspective  the  American  Rev- 
olution or  the  great  Reformation  would  be  spoken 
of  as  one  great  act.     Even  such  long  processes  as 


2IO  REVELATION 

the  downfall  of  Rome,  the  conquest  of  India  or  the 
colonization  of  America,  if  viewed  at  a  sufficiently- 
great  distance  would  seem  as  one  great  act  in  the 
historical  drama,  though  their  actual  operation  may 
have  extended  over  decades  or  even  centuries  of 
time. 

All  that  the  language  actually  expresses,  then,  is 
that  the  human  race  or  one  primitive  human 
individual,  at  some  time,  by  the  conscious  breaking 
of  some  recognized  reasonable  restraint,  first 
emerged  into  the  consciousness  of  the  moral  distinc- 
tions of  right  and  wrong,  and  that  he  emerged  into 
that  consciousness  with  the  feeling  of  moral  stigma 
resting  upon  himself,  and  with  the  awakening 
within  of  a  lawless  tendency,  a  seed  which  rapidly 
grew  and  multiplied,  and  which  both  by  heredity 
and  example  has  been  transmitted  to  all  succeeding 
generations. 

Of  course  the  driving  out  from  the  Eden  of  peace 
and  innocence  must  necessarily  follow  that  act  and 
state,  and  the  "flaming  sword"  of  conscience  would 
forever  prohibit  a  return  there.  And  the  fig  leaves 
of  shame  and  the  fear  of  the  voice  of  God  are  too 
familiar  facts  in  the  experience  of  every  one  that  has 
committed  sin  to  require  any  special  justification. 

UNITY   OF   THE   RACE 

In  this  connection  we  may  notice  the  objection 
that  this  account  speaks  of  all  the  human  race  as 
derived  from  one  ancestor,  whereas  it  is  claimed 
evolution  teaches  that  a  whole  species  of  thousands 


THE  BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  211 

or  millions  of  individuals  all  rise  gradually  by 
imperceptible  stages  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
plane  and  there  could  not  be  any  one  common 
ancestor  of  the  new  higher  species. 

This  objection  was  more  common  a  few  decades 
ago  than  it  is  now.  It  was  more  common  at  the  time 
when  men  thought  they  could  explain  the  whole 
range  of  evolution  by  the  single  formula  of  the 
"survival  of  the  fittest,"  and  in  the  confidence  of 
early  half-knowledge  were  very  impatient  of  any 
opinion  that  did  not  range  itself  under  the  operation 
of  that  one  formula.  At  the  present  day  evolution- 
ists, with  more  knowledge,  are  not  so  insistent  that 
the  whole  range  of  evolution  must  be  all  accounted 
for  under  one  formula  and  one  cause.  Indeed  most 
of  them  are  more  inclined  to  think  that  there  were 
many  different  causes  and  many  different  ways  in 
which  the  results  were  produced  and  higher  forms 
secured. 

One  of  the  causes  which  is  considered  to  have 
been  at  some  times  operative,  is  the  occurrence  of 
what  are  termed  "Sports,"  that  is  to  say  the  birth  of 
offspring  that  differ  from  their  parents  not  only  in 
very  minute,  imperceptible  degree,  but  which  differ 
from  their  parents  in  a  very  wide  and  fundamental 
degree,  so  much  so  as  to  render  intercourse  with  the 
rest  of  their  species  difficult  or  distasteful.  If  this 
new  strange  individual  found  a  mate  and  was  able 
to  perpetuate  its  peculiarities,  a  new  variety,  or 
even  a  new  species,  might  in  this  way  be  originated 
at  a  single  step.     It  would  not  be  at  all  contrary  to 


212  REVELATION 

the  present  canons  of  evolution  if  a  first  man  and 
single  ancestor  of  the  human  race  had  originated  in 
that  way. 

As  to  the  conception  of  the  special,  miraculous 
creation  of  a  mate  for  that  one  man,  if  that  picture 
is  to  be  interpreted  as  a  literal  fact,  there  need  be  no 
scientific  objection.  If,  as  we  have  seen,  the  evolu- 
tion motif  calls  for  some  act  of  intercourse  from  God 
to  man  of  the  nature  of  personal  fellowship  as  soon 
as  man  has  evolved  to  a  plane  capable  of  receiving 
that  fellowship,  that  sympathetic  act  of  God  towards 
man  would  naturally  be  of  a  miraculous  nature.  In 
a  race  where  the  highest,  and  most  valuable  of 
relations  both  ethically  and  evolutionally  is  to  be 
that  of  the  family  and  the  married  relation,  it  is  not 
inappropriate  if  this  first  necessary  act  of  fellowship 
in  welcoming  the  newly  evolved  soul  is  one  which 
glorifies  and  renders  sacred  that  relation.  And,  by 
the  way,  the  lesson  and  appropriateness  is  just  the 
same  if  what  this  poetic  picture  refers  to  is  not  one 
small  individual  action  but  some  great  fundamental, 
generic  fact,  if  for  instance  all  the  terms  refer  to 
human  society  and  its  needs  and  relations  rather 
than  those  of  one  specific  individual. 

We  may  add  here,  also,  that  the  objections  to  the 
unity  of  the  race  that  once  used  to  be  urged  on  the 
ground  of  philological  or  anthropological  reasons, 
have  now  been  pretty  generally  abandoned.  There 
is  now  a  pretty  general  recognition  that  there  is  no 
obstacle  to  belief  in  the  unity  of  the  human  race  on 
the  ground  either  of  differences  of  language,  differ- 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  213 

ences  of  anatomical  structure  or  any  other  racial  dif- 
ferences. On  the  other  hand  the  great  majority  of 
this  evidence  seems  now  to  point  positively  the 
other  way, — towards  a  common  origin  for  all 
races. 

On  the  part  of  science,  then,  there  would  seem  to 
be  no  valid  objection  now  if  we  choose  to  interpret 
these  early  pictures  as  referring  to  one  individual 
man  with  his  immediate  family.  But  when  we  come 
to  study  the  pictures  themselves  more  carefully  we 
find,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it  may  not  be  necessary 
to  give  them  that  individualistic  interpretation  after 
all.  Indeed  the  reasons  for  giving  a  different  inter- 
pretation come  from  the  wording  of  the  pictures 
themselves,  not  from  any  impossibility  or  absurdi- 
ties involved  in  the  other  interpretation. 

In  the  first  place,  the  genus  of  Hebrew  history  is 
not  individualistic.  Its  unit  is  the  race  or  nation, 
and  the  individual  comes  into  sight  only  as  he  is 
genetically  related  to  some  great  race  movement. 
Thus  we  might  mistakenly  suppose  that  the  ac- 
counts of  Abraham  refer  to  a  single  emigrant  travel- 
ling with  his  wife  and  nephew,  if  a  single  incident 
(Gen.  xiv.  14)  had  not  shown  us  that  it  was  a  great 
tribe  of  a  thousand  or  more  people  with  Abraham  as 
its  head.  Names  like  Israel,  Judah,  Cush,  Mizraim 
and  the  like,  are  used  perfectly  interchangeably  of 
an  individual  and  of  a  tribe  or  nation  of  which  that 
individual  was  in  some  sense  the  head  or  represent- 
ative, e.  g.,  Hosea  xii.  12,  13.  One  of  the  most 
remarkable     mines     of     antiquarian     information 


214  REVELATION 

was  discovered  some  years  ago  by  recognizing 
that  the  genealogies  in  Genesis  x.  do  not  indi- 
cate individuals  and  natural  family  relations  but 
nations  and  races.  The  extreme  longevity  associ- 
ated with  the  various  names  in  Genesis  v.  seems 
also  to  be  an  indication  of  the  same  kind  of  a  fact, 
the  same  way  of  using  names.  It  would  then  be 
not  only  not  necessary  but  almost  strange  to  sup- 
pose that  in  the  history  of  this  most  remote  and 
mysterious  period  of  all,  the  poet  has  confined  his 
names  strictly  to  represent  single  individuals. 

This  would  seem  to  be  rendered  the  more  unlikely 
also  by  the  fact  that  the  name  used,  "  Adam,"  is  not 
the  proper  name  of  an  individual,  but  just  the 
Hebrew  word  meaning  "  man."  As  we  read  farther 
into  the  record,  expressions  are  used  which  seem  en- 
tirely incompatible  with  the  idea  of  one  individual 
with  his  family  being  the  only  existing  human  be- 
ings. In  chapter  iv.  14  when  Cain  is  driven  away 
for  his  crime  he  expects  to  meet  other  men  where  he 
would  go  who  might  kill  him.  A  little  further  on, 
in  verse  seventeen,  he  is  spoken  of  as  "  building  a 
city."  Such  an  event  would  be  very  natural  if  it 
was  a  race  or  numerous  tribe  with  perhaps  the 
dynasty  or  house  of  Cain  as  the  ruling  power,  but 
hardly  possible  on  a  purely  individualistic  interpre- 
tation. 

The  true  interpretation  therefore  would  seem  to 
be  that  in  very  early  times,  when  the  great  histor- 
ical movements  which  have  evolved  the  world's  civi- 
lization  were    just    beginning,   there   were   certain 


THE   BIBLE  AS  A   REVELATION  215 

great  facts  and  events  which,  at  least  on  their  eth- 
ical side,  bore  the  aspect  which  is  symbolically  pic- 
tured forth  in  this  poem.  It  is  historical  events  that 
are  portrayed,  but  much  of  the  language  is  symbol- 
ical. Just  how  much  we  may  not  perhaps  be  able  to 
determine,  and  neither  in  the  mind  of  the  writer,  nor 
in  fact,  is  it  important  to  discriminate. 

Perhaps  a  possible  interpretation  of  the  whole  pic- 
ture would  be  to  consider  it  as  portraying  crucial 
events  at  the  initiation  of  the  particular  movement 
which  was  the  first  branching  off  of  the  races  and 
tendencies  which  started  the  line  of  our  present  moral 
and  social  civilization.  The  "  mist "  watering  the 
earth  simply  pictures  the  early  morning  hours  of 
time.  The  absence  of  plants  and  herbs  might  sym- 
bolize a  time  before  the  era  of  agriculture.  The 
"  garden "  may  be  either  merely  the  condition  or 
the  favourable  place  of  the  earliest  civilization.  The 
four  rivers  flowing  out  of  the  garden  of  course  can- 
not be  intended  to  indicate  physical  streams  of 
water,  as  they  never  act  thus,  flowing  from  a  centre 
outward  to  widely  separated  regions,  but  very  natu- 
rally represent  streams  of  influence,  for  instance  of 
civilization,  extending  outward  into  precisely  the 
four  regions  that  are  known  historically  as  the  early 
civilized  centres.  Is  this  paragraph  possibly  another 
such  rich  mine  of  archaeological  information  as  Gen- 
esis X.  has  been  found  to  be  ?  The  other  figures  all 
have  also  their  appropriate  signification.  The  sym- 
bolism of  the  "Tree  of  the  Knowledge  of  Good 
and   Evil"  and  of  the  eating  and   consequent  ex- 


2l6  REVELATION 

pulsion  from  the  garden  have  already  been  discussed 
above. 

PLACE  IN  THE  EVOLUTION  SCHEME 
When  we  take  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
course  of  the  Bible  history  we  see  that  it  corre- 
sponds exactly  to  the  evolution  idea,  namely,  prog- 
ress, by  means  of  successive  selections,  and  devel- 
opment of  the  superior  selected  ones.  There  was  a 
selection  at  and  immediately  after  the  time  of  Christ, 
from  the  Jewish  nation,  of  that  portion  of  it  whose 
hearts  were  most  nearly  in  accord  with  the  divine 
plan  and  ideal,  to  be  the  leaven  to  leaven  the  world, 
namely,  those  that  became  Christians  and  the  germ 
of  the  Christian  Church.  The  Babylonish  captivity 
and  return  was  another  sifting  or  selection,  sifting 
out  for  the  future  nation  only  those  most  earnest  and 
devoted  to  the  divine  plan  and  project.  The  divi- 
sion into  northern  and  southern  kingdoms  in  the 
time  of  Rehoboam  was  another  such  a  selection, 
sloughing  ofi  the  more  worldly  northern  tribes  that 
the  more  godly,  devoted  and  loyal  Judah  and  the 
south  might  be  separated  to  propagate  and  perpetu- 
ate its  higher  ideals.  The  choice  of  Jacob  and  set- 
ting aside  of  Esau  was  another  such  selection  of  the 
same  character  and  also  the  choice  of  Isaac  and  set- 
ting aside  of  Ishmael.  The  choice  of  Abraham  from 
among  his  kindred  and  countrymen,  of  course,  was 
a  very  typical  case  of  such  selection,  and  going 
further  back,  the  choice  of  the  Noachic  family  from 
among  a  corrupt  world,  was  another. 

May  it  not  be  possible,  then,  that  we  have  in  this 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  217 

Adamic  narrative  another,  and  the  first  of  the  long- 
series  of  selections,  the  first  step  in  the  long  process 
of  ethical  and  social  evolution?  And  that  the 
Adamic  individual  or  community,  whichever  it 
was,  just  like  Abraham  or  Noah,  was  a  selection  out 
of  the  great  mass  of  one  to  be  the  beginning  and 
start  for  a  new  world.  If  that  were  the  case  it 
would  not  be  difficult  to  assign  a  meaning  to  that 
mysterious  passage  in  Genesis  vi.  1-4  about  the 
"sons  of  God"  and  "daughters  of  men."  Of 
course  also  in  that  case  the  passage  about  Cain's 
city  and  the  persons  he  would  meet  in  his  wander- 
ings would  be  perfectly  plain. 

All  these,  however,  are  merely  speculations.  It  is 
the  province  of  exegesis,  not  of  this  discussion,  to 
interpret  all  these  passages.  These  suggestions  are 
made,  however,  to  show  that  there  need  be  no  op- 
position between  this  part  of  the  Bible  and  the  most 
advanced  scientific  theories,  but  on  the  contrary  a 
remarkably  suggestive  agreement. 

IMMORAL   ACTS    BY   BIBLE   HEROES 

One  more  important  objection  that  is  sometimes 
urged  is  as  to  the  moral  character  of  man}^  of  the 
acts  that  are  recorded  with  seeming  approval,  and 
sometimes  even  as  done  under  the  direction  of  God 
Himself.  A  good  example  of  this  would  be  the  con- 
quering of  the  land  of  Canaan  by  Joshua  and  taking 
the  land  from  the  former  inhabitants.  Judged  by 
our  present  day  standards  of  ethics  or  of  interna- 
tional law  much  that  was  done  in  these  cases  could  not 


2l8  REVELATION 

be  approved,  much  less  held  up  for  a  model  and  dis- 
play of  the  will  of  God.  Viewed  merely  as  accounts 
of  ancient  history  they  are  not  on  any  lower  plane 
than  the  average  of  the  events  of  the  age  and  so  not 
at  all  censurable,  but  yet  it  is  held,  since  God  is  per- 
fect, any  act  that  He  should  approve  and  hold  up  as 
a  model  must  be  an  act  not  only  up  to  the  standard 
of  the  customs  then  prevailing,  but  one  that  con- 
forms to  the  highest  standards  of  morality  of  this  or 
of  any  other  future  age.  It  should  be  a  commend- 
able act  not  only  from  the  low  moral  standpoint  of 
the  age  in  which  it  occurred,  but  absolutely  from 
God's  perfect  standpoint. 

But  this  view  quite  mistakes  God's  moral  relation 
to  men  and  His  way  of  leading  them.  It  is  a  view 
that  arises  from  the  "  mechanical  theory  of  God's 
activities  "  and  not  the  view  that  must  necessarily  be 
maintained  from  the  evolutionist's  standpoint.  It 
represents  God  as  something  like  a  great  magistrate 
or  policeman,  who  has  made  a  great  list  dividing  all 
actions  and  dispositions  of  mind  into  two  classes, 
good  and  bad,  and  whose  only  office  is  to  see  that 
men  do  only  the  kind  of  acts  contained  in  the  first 
list  and  none  of  those  in  the  second  list.  No  act 
that  is  catalogued  in  the  second  list  can  have  any 
other  consideration  by  God  but  complete  disap- 
proval and  condemnation.  God  can  give  no  direc- 
tions or  advice  to  men  that  does  not  consist  solely 
and  completely  of  actions  catalogued  in  the  second 
list. 

The  evolutionist  view,  on  the  other  hand,  does  not 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  219 

primarily  and  in  the  deepest  analysis  take  account 
of  acts  merely  as  such,  at  all.  Its  view  is  that  there 
is  a  trend  or  direction  to  all  events.  The  direction 
of  the  progress  already  made  points  towards  an 
ideal,  a  perfect  condition,  which  if  attained  the  uni- 
verse would  be  as  high,  complete  and  perfect  as  it  is 
possible  for  it  to  be.  This  perfection  includes  the 
highest  possible  development  of  all  the  existent  com- 
ponents, both  physical  and  spiritual,  and  the  most 
perfectly  advantageous  interactions  and  relations  be- 
tween and  among  them  all.  Such  a  state  is  the  goal 
at  which  the  evolution  process  is  aiming,  the  direc- 
tion in  which,  to  be  called  progress,  it  must  be  tend- 
ing. 

Translated  into  theological  language,  that  ideal 
or  perfect  condition  is  "  The  purpose  of  God."  It  is 
the  thing  that  He  is  seeking  to  bring  about  in  all  His 
work.  His  one  great  work,  which  began  with  what 
is  technically  called  "  Creation "  and  which  is  still 
under  way,  is  the  work  of  producing  such  a  uni- 
verse. Whatever  tends  to  bring  the  universe  nearer 
to  that  condition  is  in  accordance  with  God's  will. 
Whatever  tends  to  make  any  individual  or  any  re- 
gion more  nearly  fitted  to  correspond  with  and  fit 
into  that  condition,  must  be  considered  as  having 
God's  approval.  It  is  the  tendency  rather  than  the 
analytical  character  of  individual  acts  that  is  the 
crucial  matter.  For  that  matter  we  may  suppose 
that  there  never  has  been  an  act  of  any  man  or  ani- 
mal that  is  fully  up  to  the  plane  and  standard  of  that 
which  would  prevail  in  the  absolutely  perfect  condi- 


220  REVELATION 

tion  of  the  universe,  which  is  God's  ideal,  but  we 
would  not  say,  for  that  reason,  that  everything  that 
has  been  done  up  to  the  present  time  was  contrary 
to  God's  will,  and  that  it  would  be  derogatory  to 
Him  to  suppose  that  He  had  any  agency  in  bring- 
ing any  of  it  about. 

For.  instance,  we  may  imagine  some  primeval  ani- 
mals, the  progenitors  far  back  of  the  future  race  of 
man,  grovelling  in  the  dirt  and  tearing  each  other 
with  their  teeth  and  claws.  Yet  some  of  even  their 
most  ferocious  and  their  most  disgusting  practices 
may  have  been  absolutely  necessary  to  the  progress 
of  their  species  along  the  line  that  led  up  to  the  hu- 
man, mental  and  physical  organization.  Evolution 
does  not  rate  such  actions  by  their  analytical  char- 
acter and  their  correspondence  to  a  certain  cata- 
logued list.  It  takes  account  only  of  direction  and 
tendency.  Whether  or  not  there  is  a  standard  of 
morality  different  and  separate  from  this,  at  any  rate 
this  is  the  standard  of  the  evolution  process,  and  this 
the  theistic  evolutionist  translates  as  identical  with 
the  purpose  and  will  of  God. 

Now,  if  we  were  to  suppose  God  bringing  influ- 
ences to  bear  upon  any  man  at  any  time  to  do  a 
certain  act,  in  such  a  sense  that  it  could  be  consid- 
ered that  God  was  commanding  or  directing  him  to 
do  that  act,  what  kind  of  an  act  would  it  be  plau- 
sible to  suppose  that  God  would  so  direct  or  com- 
mand ?  In  order  to  answer  that  question  let  us  first 
go  back  to  those  primordial  progenitors  of  man 
whose  welfare  and  progress   demanded  that  every 


THE   BIBLE  AS  A   REVELATION  221 

individual  should  tear  and  destroy  with  teeth  and 
claws  the  other  individuals  that  interfered  with  his 
comfort  and  advantage.  Would  we  maintain  that 
the  only  direction  or  command  that  we  could  con- 
sistently suppose  God  to  give  them  would  be  to 
"  Love  their  enemies  "  and  "  If  any  one  struck  them 
on  the  one  cheek  to  turn  to  him  the  other  also "  ? 
On  the  contrary  might  we  not  even  suppose  Him  to 
urge  them  to  so  train  themselves  that  they  could  un- 
failingly kill  the  other  without  sustaining  injury 
themselves,  and  also  to  so  kill  that  the  flesh  of  the 
slaughtered  one  could  be  used  for  food.  Such  ad- 
vice would  be  precisely  in  the  line  of  evolutionary 
progress,  and  so  we  must  consider  it  to  correspond 
to  the  will  of  God,  because  it  is  precisely  the  thing 
that  He  has  been  doing  in  the  great  evolutionary 
process.  And  yet  judged  by  the  categories  of  mor- 
als that  apply  to  us  in  this  twentieth  century  it  would 
be  murder  and  cannibalism,  two  most  detestable 
crimes. 

When  we  take,  then,  the  case  of  Joshua  conquer- 
ing and  driving  out  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  of 
Canaan,  we  must  view  the  act  not  only  in  the  light  of 
"The  Hague  Tribunal "  and  the  "  Red  Cross  Society" 
but  also  in  the  light  of  those  primordial  ancestors, 
tearing  each  other  with  teeth  and  claws,  for  both  of 
these  were  but  different  stages  brought  about  by  the 
same  course  of  evolution,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  will 
of  God.  No  one  of  the  three  is  to  be  properly 
judged  by  referring  it  to  a  definite  standard  in  a 
catalogued  list,  but  each  of  them,  the  last  as  well  as 


222  REVELATION 

the  first,  is  to  be  rated  only  as  it  is  or  is  not  an  ad- 
vance upon  that  which  went  before  it,  that  is  to  say, 
whether  or  not  it  was  something  contributing  towards 
the  attainment  of  the  ideal  of  perfection  that  is  the 
goal  of  evolution, — or  the  full  purpose  of  God. 

If  we  examined  the  facts  we  would  probably  find 
that  every  one  of  the  tribes  which  Joshua  dispos- 
sessed had  themselves  gotten  that  land  in  precisely 
the  same  way  that  Joshua  took  it  away  from  them, 
in  some  cases  only  a  generation  or  two  before.  The 
customs  of  international  usage  of  that  time  did  not 
confirm  a  tribe  or  government  in  the  perpetual  pos- 
session of  any  country  except  as  they  had  the  power 
to  keep  it,  any  more  than  the  usages  of  this  age 
protect  and  confirm  a  merchant  in  the  perpetual 
possession  of  certain  customers  and  patronage,  ex- 
cept as  he  has  the  power  to  keep  it,  nor  than  the 
customs  of  the  time  of  the  primordial  ancestor  con- 
firmed the  individual  in  the  perpetual  possession  of 
his  own  skin  and  bones  except  as  he  had  the  power 
to  keep  and  defend  them. 

The  only  pertinent  question,  therefore,  is  whether 
the  possession  of  that  territory  by  Joshua  and  the 
Israelites  was  better  for  the  cause  of  humanity  and 
the  advancement  of  the  race  than  its  possession  by 
the  other  inhabitants.  If  it  was,  then  it  was  a  for- 
ward step  in  the  process  of  evolution,  which  is  equiv- 
alent to  saying  that  it  was  the  "  will  of  God,"  and 
we  might  confidently  say  that  God  ordered  or  di- 
rected it,  even  if  that  statement  were  not  made  in  so 
many  words  in  the  record. 


THE   BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  223 

In  this  connection  we  may  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  criminality  of  murder,  or  the  law 
against  taking  human  life,  is  something  that  in  any 
case  is  only  applicable  to  the  relations  between  one 
man  and  another  man.  It  is  not  founded  on  any 
such  thing  as  an  inherent  right  that  men  have  to 
life.  They  do  not  have  such  a  right.  They  have 
no  right  at  all,  and  all  must  die  some  time.  Indeed 
death,  or  the  ending  of  the  life  of  the  unsuitable 
ones,  is  a  chief  source  of  evolutionary  progress.  It 
is  needless  to  say  then  that  God  is  just  as  free  to 
end  any  or  all  life  at  any  time  He  wishes  as  He  is  to 
allow  new  life  to  originate.  The  fact  therefore  of 
God  being  conceived  as  ordering  a  great  slaughter 
here,  even  including  innocent  persons  such  as  chil- 
dren and  many  of  the  adults,  is  not  a  misrepresenta- 
tion of  the  nature  and  will  of  God.  If  it  is  then  all 
the  course  of  evolution  is  contrary  to  the  will  of  God, 
for  precisely  such  slaughter  has  always  been  one  of 
the  chief  causes  of  evolutionary  progress. 

What  has  been  said  here  with  regard  to  Joshua 
applies  equally  to  such  a  command  as  that  to  Saul 
to  exterminate  the  Amalekites  (i  Sam.  xv.  3),  or  any 
other  of  the  wars  that  God  is  represented  as  order- 
ing or  approving.  The  only  question  with  regard 
to  any  of  them  would  be  whether  they  conduced  to 
the  best  interests  of  the  human  race.  If  so  there 
would  be  not  the  slightest  incongruity,  from  the 
scientific  standpoint,  in  conceiving  them  to  have 
been  commanded  by  God. 

Or  take  an  example  already  cited  above,  which 


224  REVELATION 

Christ  Himself  discusses  and  justifies.  By  the 
great  ultimate  standard  to  which  men  are  to  con- 
form, the  marriage  bond  is  permanent  when  once 
formed,  and  any  breaking  of  it  is  wrong.  But 
Moses,  who  is  always  in  the  Bible  conceded  to  have 
acted  with  the  authority  of  God,  made  definite  direc- 
tions for  an  orderly  and  least  harmful  way  of  putting 
away  a  wife.  In  other  words,  with  God's  approval 
he  found  the  people  addicted  to  a  bad  custom  and 
he  took  steps  to  have  them  follow  another  custom, 
that  custom  also  being  confessedly  bad  but  yet  bet- 
ter than  the  custom  that  had  hitherto  prevailed,  and 
as  high  a  custom  as  it  was  practical  to  try  to  intro- 
duce. 

The  principles  that  underlie  these  two  instances 
will  account  for  a  large  number  of  those  instances  in 
the  Bible  where  a  thing  that  we  would  now  properly 
estimate  as  wrong  is  recorded  as  being  done  with 
the  approval  or  even  the  command  of  God.  An  act 
may  be  right  and  desirable  at  a  certain  stage  of  de- 
velopment, or  in  certain  conditions,  that  now  or  at 
some  future  date  would  be  wrong.  Also  "  divine 
government"  does  not  consist  exclusively  in  pro- 
pounding the  rules  of  perfect  conduct  and  punishing 
every  act  that  is  not  in  exact  accord  with  them. 
Rather  God's  directive  influence  upon  men  is  ex- 
erted to  gradually  lead  them  up  to  higher  and 
higher  levels  of  custom  and  conduct,  just  as  fast  as 
they  are  able  to  advance.  It  is  following  His  will  if 
each  new  level  is  a  higher  one,  and  each  new  custom 
better  than  the  one  before,  even  if  that  new  custom 


THE   BIBLE  AS   A   REVELATION  225 

is  still  a  faulty  and  sinful  one  and  that  new  level  still 
far  from  the  summit. 

One  more  important  principle  must  be  noticed. 
God  in  working  out  His  purposes  uses  men.  In 
every  age  and  every  stage  of  the  world's  advance- 
ment He  uses  the  men  of  that  age  and  of  that  stage 
of  advancement.  We  may  say,  perhaps,  that  in 
every  age  He  used  by  preference  the  comparatively 
best  men  of  that  age  to  be  His  instruments  in  any 
enterprise  of  a  moral  or  religious  character.  But  He 
did  not  confine  Himself  to  using  only  men  of  perfect 
character : — there  never  were  any  such.  Nor  did 
He  insure  that  in  carrying  out  some  enterprise  of 
great  moral  import  these  men  should  not  do  things 
that  were  far  from  moral.  He  neither  guarantees 
nor  indorses  all  the  acts  of  any  of  the  men  that  He 
uses  for  any  of  even  the  most  sacred  enterprises. 
He  merely  takes  men  as  they  are,  acting  as  their  or- 
dinary propensities  lead  them  to  act,  and  so  directs 
them  that  the  thing  desired  for  the  advancement  of 
the  cause  in  hand  is  accomplished.  He  does  not  un- 
dertake to  guarantee  that  it  shall  be  accomplished 
in  as  elegant  or  as  humane  a  way  as  the  best  men  of 
the  twentieth  century  might  have  accomplished  it. 
He  merely  sees  that  it  is  accomplished,  albeit  ac- 
complished in  the  way  that  this  man's  character  and 
propensities  lead  him  to  accomplish  it — or  that  the 
character  and  propensities  of  any  other  man  of  that 
age  would  lead  him  to  do  it. 

To  take  a  humble  analogy, — Suppose  a  primary 
school-teacher  wished  to  have  a  letter  of  thanks  for 


226  REVELATION 

some  favour  to  the  school,  or  some  other  letter,  writ- 
ten by  the  hands  of  some  of  the  little  children  in  the 
school.  She  chooses  one,  perhaps  the  most  capable 
child,  and  gives  him  the  task  of  writing  it.  The 
phraseology  may  be  very  awkward,  the  letters 
crooked  and  ill  formed,  the  page  blotted  and 
smeared  with  dirty  finger  marks,  but  yet  what  the 
teacher  asked  has  been  done  and  the  letter  written. 
And  if,  for  sake  of  the  argument,  we  suppose  that  it 
was  essential  that  the  letter  should  really  be  the 
actual  work  of  the  children,  that  would  be  the  very 
best  she  could  do.  But  that  does  not  mean  that  the 
teacher  wished  for  or  approved  of  those  blots  and 
the  imperfections  of  the  writing. 

When  we  read  the  history  of  Abraham,  Jacob, 
David  and  others,  we  find  in  their  marriage  relations 
and  other  habits  and  acts  many  things  that  would 
completely  outlaw  them  from  any  respectable  society 
to-day.  And  yet  they  were  held  up  as  the  religious 
leaders  and  teachers  of  righteousness  in  their  day. 
Samson,  Jephtha  and  others  of  the  early  heroes,  if 
living  to-day,  would  be  classed  as  little  better  than 
savages  and  bandits.  Indeed  the  character  and  acts 
of  most  of  the  Bible  personages,  judged  by  the  stand- 
ards of  our  twentieth  century  ideals,  would  appear 
rather  black, — almost  as  black,  perhaps,  as  the  char- 
acter and  acts  of  our  own  best  and  noblest  men  will 
appear  judged  by  the  standards  that  will  be  in  vogue 
three  thousand  years  from  now. 

But  that  is  not  a  just  way  of  judging  the  men  of 
that  age,  this  age  or  any  other  age.     On  the  other 


THE   BIBLE   AS   A   REVELATION  227 

hand,  God  takes  the  men  of  each  age  and  of  each 
plane  of  advancement,  just  as  they  are,  and  He 
commissions  some,  usually  the  best  of  them,  to  be 
His  agents  in  carrying  out  enterprises  for  the  better- 
ing and  advancing  of  their  race.  That  is  the  way, 
with  one  single  exception,  that  He  has  always  done, 
and  that  He  is  doing  now.  It  is  no  impediment, 
therefore,  to  considering  the  Bible  a  revelation  of 
God's  will,  that  that  is  the  way  He  is  represented  as 
doing  in  all  the  incidents  and  enterprises  narrated 
in  the  Old  Testament  histories. 


PART  III 

Christology 


I 

PERSON  OF  CHRIST 

GOD  APPEARING  IN  THE  FORM  OF  MAN 

WE  have  considered  a  number  of  forms  of 
revelation.  The  most  important  of  all 
remains  to  be  considered.  It  is  the 
revelation  of  God  in  personal  form  in  Jesus  Christ. 

When  we  approach  that  question  we  are  not  only 
approaching  a  great  mystery,  but  also  a  question  of 
boundless  proportions.  That  personality  has  un- 
questionably exerted,  and  is  exerting  an  enormous 
influence  upon  the  thinking  and  lives  of  men,  an 
influence  that  extends  much  farther  than  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  historical  events.  The  degree  in  which 
lives  are  influenced  differs  greatly,  but  everywhere 
the  influence  is  for  the  better  in  just  as  far  as  a  life 
feels  itself  attracted  by  that  life  and  personality. 

We  might  perhaps  be  content  to  rest  with  this 
confession  of  mystery  and  power,  for  theologians 
confess  it  is  impossible  to  fully  understand  and  ex- 
plain that  personality,  and  science  and  philosophy 
seem  disposed  to  meet  every  attempt  at  explanation 
with  such  an  energy  of  objection  that  there  is  danger 
of  the  sweet  influences  of  that  matchless  life  being 
lost  in  the  discord  of  strife  about  its  definition. 

But  the  world  will  never  be  willing  to  rest  per- 
manently in  such  a  negative  position.  At  least  we 
may  make  the  careful  inquiry  whether  there  is  any- 

231 


232  CHRISTOLOGY 

thing  in  the  certified  teachings  of  science  which  is 
in  conflict  with  the  definitions  that  theology  is  able 
to  make.  It  will  have  some  significance  to  find 
whether  the  latest  developments  of  science  tend  to 
make  those  definitions  seem  more  reasonable  or  less 
reasonable,  whether  the  tendency  of  the  latest  dis- 
coveries and  teaching  is  towards  or  away  from  the 
traditional  beliefs. 

When  we  speak  of  the  "  traditional  belief,"  it  is 
difficult  to  frame  any  one  definite  proposition  that 
would  be  accepted  by  all  as  an  expression  of  the 
traditional  belief,  since  there  has  always  been  so 
much  discussion  and  diflerence  of  opinion  on  the 
subject,  but  in  using  the  term  here  I  mean  to  refer 
to  what  is  often  called  the  "  Orthodox "  or  the 
"  Trinitarian  "  view,  the  view  that  holds  that  Christ 
was  in  a  real  sense  "  God  revealed,"  that  is  to  say  ; — 
when  one  saw  the  person  Jesus  Christ  he  saw  God 
in  just  the  same  sense  as  one  would  say  he  saw  his 
father  or  his  brother  when  he  looked  at  the  material 
body  that  bore  that  name.  Doubtless,  in  the  multi- 
plicity of  opinions  and  definitions,  there  are  many 
persons  who  would  not  agree  that  this  is  either  the 
orthodox  or  the  traditional  view,  and  it  is  not  my 
purpose  here  to  maintain  that  it  is,  or  to  discuss 
that  question  at  all,  but  simply  for  the  purpose  of 
our  discussion  here  to  hold  up  that  view  and  inquire 
whether  there  is  anything  in  the  latest  teachings  of 
science  that  tends  to  make  it  untenable. 

I  may  add  that,  at  least  in  its  literal  reading,  that 
view  is  expressed  in  the  Bible.     Jesus  is  represented 


PERSON  OF  CHRIST  233 

as  saying  in  so  many  words  just  that,  namely  :  "  He 
that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father,"  and  in  a 
number  of  other  places  the  same  thought  is  ex- 
pressed as  strongly,  or  even  more  so,  in  other  words. 
Here  again  it  would  lead  us  too  far  aside  to  go  into 
any  consideration  of  questions  of  the  interpretation 
of  any  of  these  passages,  but  all  would  admit  that  it 
would  be  greatly  in  the  interests  of  simplicity  and 
ingenuousness  of  interpretation  if  it  could  be  estab- 
lished that  there  was  nothing  in  either  philosophy 
or  science  that  offered  any  objection  to  adopting 
the  view  of  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  which  we  have 
postulated  above. 

Among  the  most  plausible  objections  that  are 
urged  against  the  belief  that  God  revealed  Himself 
in  that  way,  we  might  note  the  following  :  First, 
from  the  philosophical  or  speculative  side,  it  is 
claimed  :  (i)  That  it  is  inconsistent  with  sane  reason 
to  suppose  the  infinitely  great  being  conceived  as 
God  became  the  small  being  we  see  as  man.  (2)  It 
is  crass  anthropomorphism  to  suppose  that  God 
would  assume  the  form  of  a  man.  (3)  We  cannot 
conceive  God  as  acting  without  adequate  purpose, 
and  to  do  such  a  thing  would  be  a  purposeless  and 
unreasonable  thing.  (4)  It  is  claimed  that  it  mars 
the  force  of  Christ's  life  as  a  great  example  to  con- 
sider Him  so  essentially  separated  from  all  the  rest 
of  mankind. 

Second :  on  the  practical  side  it  is  claimed  that 
it  is  impossible,  if  not  a  contradiction  in  terms,  for  a 
being  to  be  one,  and  also  two  or  three,  in  the  way 


234  CHRISTOLOGY 

this  view  asserts  God  to  be.  Or  again  the  view  is 
judged  absurd  because  God  is  considered  as  having 
the  most  intimate  contact  and  control  at  all  times 
with  all  the  universe.  What  would  happen  then 
when  He  had  reduced  Himself  to  the  dimensions  of  a 
finite  small  man  ?  These  and  similar  objections  are 
urged  against  the  possibility  of  such  a  thing  as  is 
here  conceived,  from  the  practical  side. 

With  regard  to  the  philosophical  or  speculative 
objections  above,  we  may  say  briefly  but  definitely 
that  they  are  unsound  and  illogical.  As  to  the  first, 
that  it  is  unreasonable  to  suppose  the  infinitely  great 
God  revealing  Himself  in  the  finite  proportions  of  a 
small  man,  to  take  such  a  ground  is  really  to  deny 
that  it  is  reasonable  for  God  to  reveal  Himself  at  all. 
For  finite,  limited  man  to  thus  limit  the  possibilities 
of  infinite,  unlimited  God  is  in  the  highest  degree 
absurd  and  illogical. 

It  is  true  that,  in  the  sense  that  no  man  would  be 
able  to  receive  such  a  revelation,  we  might  say  that 
God  cannot  reveal  all  of  Himself  to  any  man, — all 
His  powers  and  attributes  and  all  His  infinite  extent 
or  expanse.  But  that  is  no  reason  why  He  may  not 
reveal  to  any  man  such  aspects  or  features  of  Himself 
as  that  man  has  capacity  to  perceive.  And  so  doing 
He  would  be  revealing  Himself  in  just  as  true  and 
real  a  sense  as  anything  is  ever  said  to  be  revealed. 
We  never  see  or  perceive  all  of  anything,  merely 
certain  features  or  aspects  of  it.  I  do  not  see  a 
man  completely  in  the  absolute  sense,  but  only  a 
general  indication  of  his  outline,  and  a  very  small 


PERSON   OF   CHRIST  235 

portion  of  his  outer  surface.  Even  witli  scalpel  and 
microscope  I  would  not  be  able  to  see  all  the  mys- 
teries of  even  the  material  substance  of  his  body. 

Now  if  God  is  to  make  any  revelation  of  Himself 
to  man  at  all  it  must  necessarily  be  in  finite  pro- 
portions. But  if  it  is  in  finite  proportions  there  is 
no  intrinsic  reason  why  it  should  be  of  one  magni- 
tude rather  than  another.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
large  or  small  in  an  absolute  sense.  These  are 
merely  terms  used  to  compare  one  object  with 
another,  or  with  our  own  size  and  perceptive  powers. 
The  whole  world  compared  with  the  size  of  the  uni- 
verse must  be  called  exceedingly  small,  but  the 
smallest  atom  cannot  be  said  to  be  absolutely  small, 
for  we  can  conceive  of  dimensions  as  many  times 
smaller  than  the  atom  as  the  atom  is  smaller  than 
the  world,  or  the  universe. 

Had  God  in  revealing  Himself  appeared  in  some 
form  as  large  as  a  mountain,  for  instance,  or  in  some 
manifestation  coextensive  with  the  whole  world, 
shallow  thinkers  might  perhaps  consider  that  a  form 
of  manifestation  more  probable  or  more  appropriate 
to  so  great  a  being  as  God.  But  such  thinking  would 
be  very  crude  and  shallow  indeed.  From  the  stand- 
point of  infinity  there  would  be  no  more  intrinsic 
appropriateness  in  the  size  of  a  world  or  a  universe 
than  in  the  size  of  a  man,  or  an  atom, — or  a  million 
times  smaller  or  larger  than  either  or  any  of  them. 

The  only  consideration  that  could  be  possibly 
pertinent  would  be  to  have  the  manifestation  in  the 
size   or   dimensions   best   suited   to  accomplish  the 


236  CHRISTOLOGY 

purpose  desired.  If  the  purpose  desired  was  to 
reveal  love,  and  win  man  to  trust  and  fellowship, 
anything  larger,  or  smaller,  than  the  common  di- 
mensions of  an  ordinary  man  would  have  been 
entirely  fatal  to  that  purpose.  We  make  the  needle's 
point  very  small,  not  from  poverty  but  because  that 
is  essential  to  its  usefulness. 

In  answer  to  the  second  objection  we  may  say  that 
exactly  the  same  reasons  apply  and  His  purpose 
could  be  best  accomplished  by  appearing  as  a  man 
with  all  the  acts  and  attributes  of  a  man.  It  is  not 
anthropomorphic  bias,  or  egotism,  on  man's  part 
that  leads  to  the  conception  of  God  appearing  in 
that  form,  but  simply  that  that  is  the  form  in  which 
it  would  be  necessary  for  the  appearance  to  be  made 
in  order  to  accomplish  the  object  intended  by  it. 
God  is  revealing  Himself  constantly,  in  a  great  many 
different  ways,  to  accomplish  varied  and  different 
purposes,  but  the  only  way  He  could  accomplish  the 
purpose  He  desired  at  this  time  was  to  reveal  Him- 
self in  the  form  of  a  man,  with  all  man's  attributes, 
and  going  through  all  man's  experiences.  He  simply 
did  the  thing  He  wished  to  do  in  the  only  appropriate 
way  that  it  could  be  done.  That  it  was  an  "  anthro- 
pomorphic" way  is  not  an  imagination  of  man's 
egotism,  but  a  result  of  man's  limitations,  namely, 
that  he  could  not  have  received  it  in  any  other  form. 

PLACE  IN  THE  EVOLUTION  SCHEME 

The  third  objection  above  would  seem,  at  first 
glance,  to  be  more  serious  and  plausible.     If  God 


PERSON   OF   CHRIST  237 

■were  absolutely  perfect  He  would  have  made  provi- 
sion for  all  contingencies  in  the  original  ordering  of 
things,  and  would  not  have  found  it  necessary  to 
intervene  from  time  to  time  to  supply  some  lacking 
part,  or  restore  something  that  had  gone  wrong.  To 
even  suppose  there  was  a  reason  for  such  a  special 
intervention  is  to  attribute  lack  of  forethought  or 
ability  in  the  first  ordering  of  all  things.  There 
could  therefore  be  no  reason  for  such  an  intervening 
or  special  revelation,  and  so  it  could  never  occur,  for 
God  could  never  act  without  sufficient  reason. 

But  this  objection  is  entirely  based  on  the  idea 
that  such  a  revelation  of  God  is  a  "  special  interven- 
tion "  or  something  apart  from  the  great  universal 
"  order  of  things,"  established  once  for  all  at  the  be- 
ginning. This  idea  is  entirely  erroneous.  It  is  no 
more  a  "  special  intervention,"  or  *'  apart  from  the 
original  established  order  of  things,"  than  the  initial 
appearance  of  life,  or  the  first  separation  of  a  revolv- 
ing sun  from  the  original  "  homogenous  fire  mist," 
was  a  special  intervention  and  apart  from  the  order 
of  things  as  first  established. 

If  it  is  claimed  to  be  special  because  it  occurred 
only  at  a  special  time  and  does  not  occur  continu- 
ously, we  must  remember  that  the  same  is  true  of 
life  and  of  many  other  things.  There  was  a  time 
when  there  was  no  living  organism  of  any  kind  ex- 
istent anywhere  in  the  universe,  and  there  will  come 
a  time  in  the  future  again  when  there  will  be  no 
living  organism  existent  anywhere  in  the  universe. 
Life  is  in  that  sense  a  "  special  phenomenon "  ap- 


238  CHRISTOLOGY 

pearing  only  at  one  certain  time  during  a  limited 
period.  For  though  the  length  of  time  that  life  has 
existed  and  will  exist  may  aggregate  many  millions 
of  millions  of  years,  yet  in  comparison  with  the  whole 
period  of  the  universe's  existence  that  may  be 
but  like  one  year,  or  one  day.  There  is  nothing 
"  special "  therefore  in  the  fact  that  this  particular 
species  or  instance  of  "God  revealing  Himself"  ap- 
peared for  only  thirty-three  years  out  of  the  many 
thousand  years  of  man's  history. 

The  misconception  probably  arises  from  the  erro- 
neous practice  in  many  theological  discussions  of 
considering  the  "  Incarnation  "  as  only  a  means  or 
necessity  for  the  "  Atonement."  This  is  wrong  and 
unfortunate.  It  would  be  more  nearly  a  true  con- 
ception to  consider  the  "  Atonement "  a  necessary 
result  or  incident  of  the  Incarnation.  At  any  rate 
the  Incarnation,  or  revelation  by  God  of  Himself  in 
human  form,  is  a  great,  primary  fact  in  itself,  and  the 
reasons  for  its  occurrence  would  have  just  as  inevi- 
tably brought  it  about  if  there  had  been  no  sin  and 
no  cause  for  "  Atonement. " 

In  fact  it  is  the  "  Incarnation  "  itself,  that  is,  the 
self-revealing  and  fellowship  offered  by  God  to  men, 
that  is  the  fundamental  purpose  and  object,  not 
some  teaching  to  be  conveyed  or  other  work  to  be 
done  through  that  as  a  means.  The  teaching  ef- 
fected, and  even  the  Atonement  are  merely  to  be 
classed  as  "incidents  accompanying"  that  great 
act.  To  use  a  term  employed  in  human  enterprises 
they  might  almost  be  compared  to  what  is  classed  as 


PERSON   OF   CHRIST  239 

"  by-products."  By  that  it  is  meant  not  to  infer 
anything  as  to  their  greater  or  less  importance,  but 
merely  their  logical  relation.  The  revealing  Him- 
self to  man  in  a  way  to  exhibit  the  possibility  of  in- 
tellectual or  spiritual  intercourse  is  to  be  considered 
as  an  end  in  itself,  and  an  event  of  primary  impor- 
tance. 

Studied  carefully  in  that  light  it  will  be  seen  that 
some  such  revealing  of  Himself  by  God  as  is  recorded 
to  have  been  made  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  is  a 
necessary  and  integral  part  of  the  process  of  evolu- 
tion. Without  it  the  process  of  evolution  must  ever 
have  been  as  truly  checked  and  incomplete  as  it 
would  have  been  if  there  had  never  been  provided 
such  a  thing  as  light,  or  if  there  had  failed  to  be  any 
redundancy  of  free  oxygen  to  form  the  atmosphere. 

We  can  imagine  that  there  is  a  certain  stage  in  the 
upward  progress  of  things  which  might  have  been 
attained  if  there  had  been  no  such  thing  as  light  in 
the  universe.  But  there  came  a  stage  when  if  there 
had  been  no  light  further  evolution  in  certain  lines 
would  have  been  impossible.  In  the  same  way  there 
came  a  time  in  the  course  of  evolution  when  an  at- 
mosphere containing  free  oxygen  was  one  of  the 
essentials  for  the  next  higher  grade  of  creatures  to 
be  evolved.  In  the  same  way  again  there  came  a 
time  when  for  the  next  higher  step  in  the  evolution  a 
self-revelation  of  God  was  necessary.  Without  it 
that  next  step  could  not  be  attained  any  more  than 
the  other  mentioned  steps  could  have  been  made 
without  light  or  without  air. 


240  CHRISTOLOGY 

During  the  first  primitive  processes  of  breaking 
up  the  original  "  homogenous  fire  mist "  into  re- 
volving systems  of  suns  and  planets  a  few  very 
simple  laws  of  motion  and  energy  were  all  that  were 
essential.  But  when  a  higher  order  of  existence, 
namely,  life  and  living  organisms,  came  into  being, 
then  water,  light  and  a  number  of  other  things  were 
necessary  for  their  continued  existence  and  progress. 
In  the  same  way,  when  the  progress  had  reached  a 
higher  stage,  where  a  higher  order  of  animals,  in- 
habiting the  land,  were  to  be  produced,  an  atmos- 
phere with  a  suitable  proportion  of  oxygen,  and  a 
number  of  other  conditions  were  essential  for  the 
existence  and  continued  progress  of  that  form  of 
animal  life.  In  exactly  the  same  way,  still  further 
on  in  the  course,  when  evolving  man  had  reached 
not  only  the  stage  of  intelligence  and  moral  re- 
sponsibility, but  was  ready  to  make  the  next  step 
and  reach  a  stage  which  contemplated  spiritual 
intercourse  with  God,  some  appropriate  form  of  self- 
revelation  of  God  to  man  was  just  as  necessary  for 
the  consummation  of  that  advance,  and  so  just  as 
truly  a  part  of  the  one  great  scheme  of  evolution  as 
was  the  existence  of  water,  or  light,  or  air,  or  gravi- 
tation or  any  other  of  the  objects  or  laws  that  had 
their  place  in  that  scheme.  From  the  standpoint  of 
science  it  cannot  be  considered  a  "  special  inter- 
vention "  at  all,  any  more  than  they  are  special 
interventions.  It  is  just  the  furnishing  at  the  re- 
quired time  of  the  required  environment  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  one  great  process  upward. 


PERSON   OF  CHRIST  24I 

Nor  may  we  say  that  it  is  essentially  differentiated 
from  those  other  common  adjuncts  of  evolution  by 
the  fact  that  it  was  only  brought  into  existence  at  a 
certain  late  time  while  they  were  laws  or  facts  that 
existed  from  the  beginning  of  the  course.  In  the 
first  place,  we  cannot  say  of  all  these  other  adjuncts 
that  they  always  existed.  Some  of  them  also  seem 
to  have  first  come  into  existence  just  about  the  time 
they  were  to  be  first  needed.  It  is  very  unlikely 
that  the  water  on  this  earth  was  such  that  it  would 
have  been  suitable  to  sustain  life,  or  the  atmosphere 
to  sustain  the  orders  of  land  animals  much  before 
the  era  when  these  things  began  to  appear.  Nor 
were  the  light  conditions  and  facilities  for  vision 
suitable  for  the  life  of  land  animals  in  the  earliest 
stages  of  the  earth's  history.  The  same  would  be 
true  of  many  other  things.  It  is  no  exceptional  case, 
then,  if  the  self-revelation  of  God  in  the  form  we 
are  now  contemplating  did  not  occur  until  the  time 
came  when  there  were  men  of  sufificient  development, 
both  mentally  and  spiritually,  to  receive  and  use  it. 

Nor  is  it  a  pertinent  objection  that  all  these  other 
things,  while  possibly  appearing  in  the  given  form 
only  about  the  time  they  were  needed,  were  really 
the  result  of  facts  and  laws  in  existence  from  the 
beginning,  while  this  self-revelation  was  an  act 
initiated  at  that  late  time  when  it  first  appeared. 
In  the  very  nature  of  the  case  it  must  and  should  be 
so.  All  these  others  are  in  their  essence  physical 
facts,  made  up  of  the  interactions  of  matter,  energy 
and  law,  which  naturally  are  supposed  to  be  con- 


242  CHRISTOLOGY 

stant  and  continuous  from  the  beginning.  This  has 
to  do  with  the  inter-activity  of  individual  persons. 
It  must  necessarily  be  some  personal,  volitional  act 
of  God.  The  very  object  to  be  attained  requires 
that.  Personal  intercourse  between  men  always 
consists  in  such  personal  volitional  acts,  it  may  be 
speaking  or  some  other  kind  of  acts  of  one  towards 
another.  Without  this,  however  near  persons  are  to 
each  other,  there  is  no  personal  intercourse.  Since, 
then,  the  very  essence  of  this  new  thing  that  is  to 
come  into  existence  as  the  next  step  in  evolution  is 
a  state  of  personal  intercourse  between  man  and 
God,  there  must  necessarily  be  personal,  volitional 
acts  by  God  as  the  very  essence  of  that  personal 
intercourse.  But  personal  volitional  acts  are  by  very 
definition  not  the  necessitated  product  of  con- 
tinuously acting  physical  laws,  but  are  definitely 
initiated  by  the  individual  at  that  definite  time. 

Indeed  if  we  wish  to  press  the  point  we  can  say 
that  it  too,  like  all  the  others,  is  truly  a  necessary 
product  of  something  that  existed  from  the  beginning. 
Not  a  product  of  physical  energies  and  laws,  for  it 
does  not  belong  in  that  class.  It  is  a  product  of  the 
intention  and  character  of  God,  and  that  has  existed 
just  as  unchanged  from  the  beginning  as  has  the 
law  of  gravitation  or  light,  or  any  other  law  or 
substance.  There  is  nothing  therefore  in  this  self- 
revelation  of  God  to  man  that  warrants  us  in  class- 
ing it  as  a  "  special  intervention  "  in  any  sense  to 
differentiate  it  from  all  the  other  natural  causes  that 
have  contributed  naturally  to  the  upward  course  of 


PERSON   OF  CHRIST  243 

evolution.     It  is  simply  one  of  the  latest  or  highest 
natural  members  of  that  series. 

That  this  state  of  spiritual  or  intellectual  inter- 
course between  God  and  man  is  to  be  properly 
classed  as  a  natural  and  higher  step  in  the  one  con- 
tinuous course  of  evolution  I  think  is  sufficiently 
evident  and  requires  no  argument.  Man  is  the 
highest  known  evolved  creature,  and  it  is  personal 
intercourse  of  person  with  person  which  is  the 
highest  kind  of  activity  of  this  highest  of  crea- 
tures. It  is  higher  than  mere  knowledge  or  power, 
either  physical  or  mental,  for  it  involves  the  play  of 
all  these  and  also  the  play  of  the  affections  and  all 
of  the  whole  man.  As  personal  intercourse  is  the 
highest  kind  of  activity,  so  the  higher  the  class  of 
intercourse,  or  the  higher  the  person  with  whom 
intercourse  is  held,  the  higher  the  fact  must  be 
classed.  Intercourse  with  God,  therefore,  must  be 
the  highest  kind  of  all,  and  men  enjoying  that  kind 
of  intercourse  must  be  on  a  higher  plane  than  those 
that  are  not,  and  so  must  be  classed  as  on  the  very 
highest  plane  of  evolution  yet  reached. 

THE  EVOLUTION  THEORY  CALLS  FOR  AN 
INCARNATION 

Now,  as  we  have  already  indicated,  the  very 
evolution  theory  itself  requires  that  the  necessary 
means  for  attaining  that  highest  stage  or  plane 
should  be  available.  But  that  implies  a  self-revela- 
tion of  God.  Therefore,  as  we  have  said,  the  evolu- 
tion theory  itself  calls  for  such  a  self-revelation. 


244  CHRISTOLOGY 

Here  is  a  process,  beginning  with  the  simplest 
mere  life  in  a  single  cell.  That  life,  by  continually 
reaching  upward  and  making  the  best  of  all  the 
opportunities  and  facilities  within  its  reach,  has 
evolved  and  developed  till  it  has  reached  a  stage 
where  it  has  a  most  highly  organized  and  adaptable 
body,  and  a  mind  of  wonderful  grasp  and  ability. 
At  that  stage  it  finds  for  its  body,  or  on  the  physical 
side,  facilities  for  all  kinds  of  nourishment,  besides 
tools  and  appliances  to  elevate  its  condition,  and  on 
the  mental  side  a  whole  universe  of  the  most  intri- 
cate and  interesting  knowledge  to  draw  it  out  and 
exalt  its  powers.  And  not  only  so  but  facilities  fur- 
nished, sometimes  in  the  most  remarkable  way,  to 
make  that  knowledge  available  to  its  use. 

When  it  comes  to  the  third  side,  or  man's  capac- 
ity for  personal  intercourse  and  fellowship,  we  find 
that  man  has  made  wonderful  advance  and  that 
human  fellowship  and  personal  intercourse  have 
come  to  be  in  many  cases  most  noble  and  elevating 
things.  But  man  has  not  reached  the  limit  of  possi- 
bility in  this  respect.  He  is  both  capable  of  and 
would  be  immensely  uplifted  by  fellowship  and  per- 
sonal intercourse  with  higher  and  nobler  personali- 
ties than  exist  among  mankind.  Certainly  in  God's 
infinite  person  there  could  be  afforded  to  man  an  in- 
tercourse and  fellowship  of  the  highest  kind,  and  as 
he  would  begin  to  engage  in  that  fellowship  it  would 
react  upon  his  own  nature,  making  him  fit  for  and 
capable  of  still  higher  and  higher  kinds  and  degrees 
of   fellowship,  while  always  in  God's  person  there 


PERSON   OF  CHRIST  245 

would  ever  be  more  than  sufficient  to  afford  the 
highest  kind  of  fellowship  that  he  would  ever  be- 
come capable  of  engaging  in.  It  is  plain  that  here 
is  the  path  of  man's  highest  and  noblest  progress. 
Certainly  it  would  not  be  a  break  or  a  violation  of 
God's  great  plan  of  evolution  if  He  has  also  made 
provision  for  this  highest  advance,  as  He  so  com- 
pletely and  wonderfully  has  for  all  the  other  steps  of 
the  advance. 

Fellowship  is  one  of  those  terms  that  we  instinc- 
tively understand  better  than  we  can  define.  It  in- 
cludes not  only  an  exchange  of  thoughts  and  ideas, 
but  also  a  feeling  of  interest,  sympathy  and  affec- 
tion, of  comradeship  and  companionship,  a  feeling 
of  need  for  or  delight  in  the  presence  of  each  other. 
It  means  not  simply  the  intellectual  knowledge  that 
these  qualities  exist  in  some  one,  but  the  actual  ac- 
tive exercise  of  these  qualities  by  two  persons  mutu- 
ally towards  each  other. 

God  can  therefore  afford  men  the  opportunity  of 
this  kind  of  fellowship  and  intercourse  with  Himself 
only  by  doing  the  kind  of  acts  that  are  appropriate 
to  such  intercourse.  It  must  be  a  self-revelation  of 
Himself,  and  not  in  a  passive  sense  only  but  in  an 
active  sense,  by  doing  the  acts  appropriate  to  those 
feelings  and  relations.  All  the  so-called  "super- 
natural acts  "  would  in  some  degree  be  a  contribu- 
tion to  this,  but  we  can  hardly  conceive  how  He 
could  fulfill  the  conditions  of  such  a  fellowship  more 
fully  and  effectively  than  by  becoming  a  man  and 
going  through  the  whole  range  of  human  experi- 


246  CHRISTOLOGY 

ences  in  the  closest  company  and  affectionate  inti- 
mate association  witli  other  men,  just  as  He  is  re- 
corded as  having  done  in  the  history  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  the  Bible.  Such  an  act  would  be  in  the  highest 
degree  reasonable  and  in  perfect  accord  with  the 
whole  course  of  evolution,  provided,  of  course,  only 
that  it  was  possible,  a  question  which  we  shall  con- 
sider later  and  find  to  it,  I  believe,  a  decidedly  affirm- 
ative reply. 

As  to  the  question  whether  it  is  an  object  of  suffi- 
cient importance  that  God  might  think  it  worth 
while  and  worth  the  effort  it  would  cost  Him,  we 
need  have  no  particular  doubt.  To  God  no  act  is  a 
matter  of  difficulty  or  distasteful  effort.  Anything 
He  wishes  for  is  an  object  worth  while,  and  the  diffi- 
culty of  securing  it  or  the  greatness  of  the  act  neces- 
sary is  not  a  deterrent  consideration  in  any  degree, 
provided,  of  course,  that  it  does  not  interfere  with  the 
attainment  of  some  more  valuable  object,  for  nothing 
is  difficult  with  God.  We  may  well  consider,  too, 
that  one  such  noble  being,  as  would  be  eventually 
evolved  through  this  fellowship  and  intercourse  with 
God,  would  be  more  valuable  in  God's  estimation 
than  a  whole  universe  of  mere  dead  revolving 
worlds,  and  God's  plan  contemplates  the  production 
of  not  one  only,  but  countless  myriads  of  such  high 
and  noble  beings. 

IF  GOD  IS  LOVE  HE  WOULD  DO  IT 
I  may  add  one  more  consideration  of  another  na- 
ture.    Not  only  does  the  evolution  theory  and  the 


PERSOxN   OF   CHRIST  247 

rational  course  of  nature  call  for  some  such  revela- 
tion of  Himself  by  God  as  would  afford  to  man  the 
possibility  of  fellowship  and  personal  intercourse, 
since  the  necessary  means  for  all  desirable  evolu- 
tional advance  have  always  been  furnished,  but  its 
necessity  is  also  certified  by  considerations  drawn 
from  an  entirely  different  quarter. 

We  may  postulate  in  the  first  place  that  such  in- 
tercourse would  be  a  great  benefit  to  man,  and  also 
that  it  would  be  possible  for  God  to  do  this  to  afford 
the  opportunity  of  such  intercourse  and  fellow- 
ship. Now  among  the  moral  sentiments  that  have 
some  way  come  to  have  an  established  place  in 
men's  minds  is  the  conviction  that  "  to  love  one's 
neighbour  as  one's  self"  is  one  of  the  highest  of 
moral  standards.  In  the  estimation  of  all  the  best 
of  men  that  is  a  standard  that  all  men  ought  to  aim 
at.  Anything  less  than  that  is  less  than  moral  per- 
fection. 

Now  we  cannot  conceive  of  God  as  exhibiting 
anything  less  than  moral  perfection.  But  if,  without 
really  any  serious  detriment  to  Himself,  He  might  af- 
ford to  men  something  that  would  be  of  such  enor- 
mous benefit  to  them,  and  should  entirely  and  per- 
manently decline  to  do  it,  He  would  be  acting  in  a 
way  that  would  be  far  below  this  standard  of  moral 
perfection.  This  is  not  saying  that  God  is  under 
obligation  to  do  this  or  that  act,  or  even  that  He  is 
obliged  to  act  according  to  a  standard  of  moral 
right.  It  is  merely  saying  that  as  a  fact  His  charac- 
ter and  acts  do  correspond  perfectly  to  the  highest 


248  CHRISTOLOGY 

Standard  of  moral  right,  and  in  this  case  to  conform 
to  that  standard  would  imply  doing  this  for  man 
which  would  be  of  such  enormous  benefit  to  him. 
And  therefore  we  can  say  with  perfect  certainty  that 
God  would  do  it,  because  God  always  does  what 
corresponds  to  that  standard.  For  this  reason  also 
then  we  see  that  God  from  His  very  nature  must 
make  a  self-revelation  to  man  in  such  a  case.  Cer- 
tainly the  historic  Jesus  Christ  was  a  person  of  such 
a  character  that  He  would  have  done  that  much  for 
mankind  if  He  had  been  able.  If  God  would  not 
have  been  willing  to  do  it  and  Jesus  Christ  w^as  not 
God  He  was  a  being  with  a  higher  moral  character 
than  that  of  God.  If  moral  character  is  the  greatest 
thing  in  existence  then  Jesus  Christ  must  have  been 
either  God  or  a  being  greater  than  God.  But  He 
was  not  and  could  not  be  higher  than  God,  for  God's 
moral  character  is  perfect.  God  would  do  and  did 
do  just  that  which  He  knew  would  bring  the  great- 
est benefit  to  men,  by  revealing  Himself  in  the  clos- 
est personal  relations  to  men,  and  that  God  so  re- 
vealed was  precisely  the  Jesus  Christ  of  Bible  his- 
tory. 

TRUE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  INCARNATION 

The  fourth  objection  noted  was  that  the  force  of 
Christ's  example  as  an  inspiration  to  other  men 
would  be  greater  if  He  was  only  a  mere  man  like 
the  rest  of  us  and  not  a  supernatural  or  divine  being. 
This  objection  has  already  been  quite  fully  answered 
in  what  has  been  said  above.     If  the  main  object  of 


PERSON   OF  CHRIST  249 

God  revealing  Himself  in  human  form  was  to  set  a 
perfect  pattern  before  men,  not  only  would  that  have 
been  a  thing  that  could  have  been  far  better  accom- 
plished in  other  ways,  but  it  would  be  plausibly 
charged  as  a  "  special  intervention  "  or  violation  of 
the  continuity  of  evolution.  But  that  was  not  the 
main  purpose  of  the  incarnation.  It  was  an  im- 
portant benefit  which  we  obtain  through  that  incar- 
nation, but  it  was  not  the  producing  cause  of  that 
incarnation. 

A  much  higher  and  greater  object  is  the  "  salva- 
tion from  sin  "  which  the  Bible  teaches  that  we  have 
obtained  through  that  coming  and  the  suffering  of 
the  Son  of  God.  Yet  even  that  cannot  be  considered 
the  primary  cause  and  object  of  God  becoming  man. 
It  is  much  more  nearly  so  than  the  mere  teaching  or 
setting  a  perfect  pattern.  But  as  we  have  already 
seen  it  was  the  self-revealing  itself  that  was  the  real 
object  and  purpose  of  God,  a  purpose  which  He 
would  certainly  have  carried  out  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  the  evolution  progress  because  it  was  an 
integral  and  necessary  part  of  that  progress  just  as 
much  as  any  other  part  of  it.  It  was  not  sin  that 
brought  Him  into  the  world.  It  only  caused  the  suf- 
fering and  death  when  He  did  come. 

Viewed  in  its  deepest  and  truest  meaning  I  think 
we  will  find  that  the  whole  transaction  holds  a  re- 
markable analogy  to  all  the  rest  of  the  common 
steps  in  the  evolution.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  the  whole  race  or  the  whole  of  any  species  has 
steadily  advanced  or  even  shown  a  tendency  to  ad- 


250  CHRISTOLOGY 

vance.  The  tendency  has  been  merely  to  "  vari- 
ation," that  is,  to  variation  in  every  direction, — vari- 
ation downward  and  to  things  that  would  produce 
deterioration  or  prevent  progress,  just  as  much,  if 
not  indeed  far  more,  than  variation  in  the  useful 
direction.  It  is  only  at  each  stage  certain  77ietnbers 
that  have  varied  in  the  direction  of  progress.  Or  to 
express  it  otherwise,  the  path  of  evolution  has  at 
each  stage  afforded  certain  superior  facilities  to  any 
that  would  vary  in  the  direction  to  take  advantage 
of  them.  From  stage  to  stage  certain  individuals 
did  vary  in  the  exact  way  to  take  advantage  of  those 
superior  facilities  and  so  advanced.  Other  individ- 
uals, perhaps  the  vast  majority,  did  not  vary  in  the 
direction  to  be  able  to  take  advantage  of  those 
superior  facilities  and  so  did  not  advance.  They 
varied  in  some  other  direction  and  so  either 
perished  or  stagnated  and  became  confined  as  a 
species  at  that  particular  level,  or  became  side- 
tracked off  into  some  other  path  of  progress  that  led 
upward  but  did  not  lead  towards  the  highest  goal  of 
man  and  what  is  beyond  man.  That  is  in  a  brief 
sentence  the  invariable  experience  at  every  stage  or 
step  upward. 

It  is  precisely  the  experience  at  this  stage.  The 
next  upward  step  in  the  evolution  is  a  step  to  an 
improved  and  higher  state  of  fellowship  and  personal 
intercourse.  Sin  is  for  the  most  part,  if  not  entirely, 
error  or  wrong  in  the  sphere  of  fellowship  and  per- 
sonality. The  scheme  of  evolution  as  God  designed 
and  is  carrying  it  out  affords  at  this  point  a  greatly 


PERSON   OF   CHRIST  25 1 

superior  opportunity  in  this  very  sphere  of  fellow- 
ship, as  we  have  seen,  namely,  fellowship  with  God 
Himself.  Some  individuals  make  a  variation  in  the 
direction  that  enables  them  to  take  advantage  of 
that  superior  opportunity,  and  they  do  get  its  benefit 
and  so  do  advance.  Other  individuals  do  not  make 
the  variation  in  that  direction  and  so  do  not  get  that 
benefit  and  do  not  advance,  or  make  variation  in 
other  and  unfavourable  directions  and  so  go  down- 
ward and  perish.  (See  John  xvii.  3  :  "  This  is 
eternal  life,  that  they  should  know  Thee  the  only 
true  God  and  Him  whom  Thou  didst  send,  even 
Jesus  Christ.") 

Such  then  is  the  real  situation.  The  self-revelation 
of  God,  or  the  "  Incarnation  "  is  the  real  primal  fact. 
It  is  an  integral  part  of  the  one  grand  scheme  of 
evolution,  the  one  necessary  prearranged  means  to 
enable  men  to  make  the  next  great  step  in  the  evo- 
lution up  into  fellowship  with  God,  It  was  an  event 
that  must  have  occurred  in  any  case,  that  the  great 
universe  progress  might  be  brought  to  its  goal  and 
the  object  attained.  It  was  only  the  sinfulness  of 
men  that  made  the  event  when  it  did  occur  such  a 
matter  of  suffering  and  pain  to  the  incarnate  person. 
But  that  bearing  of  such  pain  and  suffering  but 
showed  what  the  nature  of  God  was,  and  always  had 
been,  namely,  that  He  was  quite  willing  to  even  bear 
such  suffering  for  the  sake  of  man's  good  and  to  ob- 
tain his  fellowship,  and  also  showed  that  God's  fel- 
lowship with  man  in  such  a  state  of  sin  as  he  then 
was,  or  sinful  man's  fellowship  with  God,  must  neces- 


252  CHRISTOLOGY 

sarily  produce  that  suffering  and  pain  to  God.  In 
other  words  that  "  Incarnation  "  was  the  sincerest 
act  of  complete  fellowship,  on  God's  part,  including 
all  that  fellowship  could  be,  and  including  the  delib- 
erate reception  of  all  of  pain  and  suffering  that  fel- 
lowship must  entail.  That  was  what  God  did  as  an 
act  of  fellowship,  to  lead  men  to  take  that  highest 
step  in  the  process  of  evolution,  namely,  "  fellowship 
with  God." 

POSSIBILITY  OF  THE  INCARNATION 

We  next  come  to  the  objections  that  are  urged  as 
to  the  possibility  of  God  revealing  Himself  in  human 
form.  At  first  glance  unquestionably  these  objec- 
tions seem  to  be  very  plausible  and  weighty.  There 
is  such  an  infinite  distance  and  disparity  between 
man  and  God,  Indeed  when  man  reaches  out  his 
thoughts  and  imaginations  to  their  farthest  possible 
limits  and  contemplates  this  vast  universe  which  is 
so  large  and  wonderful  that  it  staggers  his  very  im- 
agination to  try  to  form  any  conception  at  all  of  it, 
and  then  thinks  that  God  is  so  much  greater  than 
even  all  of  this  that  He  was  able  to  create  it  all  by  a 
single  wish  or  word  it  does  seem  a  strange  and 
impossible  thought  that  so  great  a  being  should 
become  such  a  little  being  as  man  is  and  for  a 
time  go  through  all  the  experiences  of  an  ordinary 
man. 

There  are  three  main  points,  perhaps,  that  are 
made  in  the  objection,  ist.  The  impossibility  of  one 
individual  being  two  or  three,  or  presenting  such  an 


PERSON   OF  CHRIST  253 

aspect  of  duality  or  Trinity  as  is  supposed  in  this 
teaching  of  the  incarnation. 

2d.  The  impossibility  of  a  being  so  great  as 
God  is  revealing  Himself  in  a  form  so  small  as  the 
person  of  a  man. 

3d.  The  impossibility  of  the  universe  continuing  if 
God  had  reduced  Himself  to  a  man,  or  in  other  words 
the  question  of  God's  relation  to  the  universe  during 
the  time  He  was  revealing  Himself  as  a  man,  since 
we  conceive  that  God  is  now  and  all  the  time  in  the 
most  intimate  contact  and  relation  to  every  part  of 
the  universe. 

It  will  be  more  convenient,  however,  in  answering 
these  objections  not  to  take  them  up  separately,  but 
the  considerations  we  shall  urge  will  apply  equally  to 
all. 

I  think  we  shall  find  that  each  and  all  these  objec- 
tions arise  out  of  a  wrong  conception  of  the  nature 
of  spirit  and  of  personality.  As  it  is  just  in  this  field 
that  some  of  the  most  remarkable  discoveries  and 
demonstrations  in  the  psychological  science  have 
been  made  in  recent  years  it  will  be  quite  in  place  to 
reexamine  the  whole  subject  in  the  light  of  the  later 
conceptions  which  have  been  established. 

What  the  common  conception  of  personality  and  a 
soul  has  been  is  indicated  by  the  etymological  mean- 
ing of  the  word  which  is  commonly  used  to  express 
it, — "individual."  The  soul  or  self  was  conceived 
as  the  most  absolute  sort  of  an  indivisible  unit.  It 
was  conceived  that  as  far  as  extended  magnitude 
was  concerned  the  soul  had  absolutely  no  extension 


254  CHRISTOLOGY 

or  size  but  was  an  absolute  point.  So  the  ancient 
schoolmen  used  to  discuss  the  question,  "  How  many 
thousands  of  angels  or  spirits  could  stand  on  the 
point  of  the  finest  cambric  needle  ?  " 

This  conception  was  formed  by  a  hasty  and  incor- 
rect induction  from  the  apparent  mechanism  of  our 
ordinary  thinking.  Nothing  seems  more  apparently 
certain  than  that  I  am  a  unit.  Not  only  is  my  body 
one  only,  but  it  is  the  same  "  I  "  that  sees,  hears, 
feels,  wills,  remembers,  and  does  all  the  other  acts, 
and  it  is  the  same  "  I "  that  thought,  perceived  or 
acted  an  hour  ago,  half  an  hour  ago  and  just  now. 
This  is  considered  as  being  a  fact  that  we  are  directly 
and  immediately  conscious  of,  and  as  that  is  the 
most  certain  grade  of  knowledge  we  are  capable  of 
attaining,  that  fact  must  be  true  and  incapable  of 
being  doubted.  If,  then,  it  is  the  same  subject  that 
has  perceived  a  number  of  different  things  or  thought 
a  number  of  different  thoughts,  these  acts  could  not 
have  taken  place  in  different  parts  or  locations  of  an 
extended  substance,  say  one  of  them  take  place  in 
the  hand  and  another  in  the  eye  several  feet  away, 
for  that  would  be  virtually  the  same  as  two  different 
agents  acting  or  perceiving.  There  must  be  some 
central  agent  to  which  all  perceptions  in  the  distant 
members  are  transmitted  and  from  which  all  volitions 
emanate.  What  would  be  true  of  places  as  far  apart 
as  the  hand  and  the  eye  would  be  just  as  true  of 
places  half  as  far  apart  or  a  hundredth  part  as  far,  or 
a  millionth,  in  fact  separated  the  millionth  part  of  the 
breadth  of  an  atom,  or  any  most  infinitesimal  distance 


PERSON   OF   CHRIST  255 

at  all.  Therefore,  it  is  concluded,  this  central  agency, 
or  the  real  "  I,"  must  be  an  absolute  point,  therefore 
absolutely  indivisible  and  one. 

Naturally  all  these  conceptions  and  definitions  are 
passed  right  over  to  the  conception  of  God,  since 
God  is  conceived  as  a  spirit,  having  all  the  essential 
attributes  that  man's  spirit  has.  It  is  true  the  doc- 
trine of  the  omnipresence  of  God  seems  to  be  incom- 
patible with  such  a  conception,  but  that  is  simply  set 
down  as  incomprehensible  and  the  old  conception 
still  retained.  It  is  on  the  foundation  of  some  such 
conception  of  God's  form  or  character  that  all  the 
above  objections  to  the  possibility  of  one  God  exist- 
ing as  two  or  more  persons  are  based. 


NEW  CONCEPTIONS  AS  TO  PERSONALITY 

Modern  psychology  approaches  the  question  in  an 
entirely  different  way,  and  instead  of  starting  with  a 
complete  and  infallible  conception  of  what  a  spirit  or 
person  is,  derived  directly  from  consciousness,  it 
first  goes  to  work  to  collect  the  observed  objective 
facts  and  phenomena  bearing  on  the  question,  and 
from  those  facts  and  phenomena  proceeds  to  deter- 
mine the  nature  and  characteristics  of  mind  or 
personality,  just  as  it  would  with  any  other  ob- 
ject. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  other  method  is 
entirely  faulty  and  false  logically.  There  is  no 
logical  connection  at  all  between  the  unity  of  con- 
sciousness and  limitation  to  a  single  point  of  space. 


256  CHRISTOLOGY 

Considerations  of  space  extension  do  not  apply  at  all 
any  more  than  weight,  colour  or  any  other  quality. 
It  would  be  just  about  as  reasonable  to  claim  that  an 
act  of  thought  must  be  black  because  it  is  not  white 
or  any  other  colour,  as  to  claim  it  must  be  at  an  ab- 
solute point  of  space.  It  is  applying  attributes  that 
do  not  inhere  in  it  at  all.  It  is  equally  illogical  to 
argue  from  the  unity  of  consciousness  that  the  soul 
or  conscious  subject  must  necessarily  be  an  indivisi- 
ble unit.  That  does  not  logically  follow  at  all.  We 
can  positively  determine  from  consciousness  nothing 
at  all  on  that  question.  But  so  deep  seated  has 
become  the  belief  of  the  absolute  indivisibility  of  the 
human  spirit  that  when  the  fact  of  human  reproduc- 
tion seems  to  give  unquestionable  evidence  of  its 
divisibility,  the  strange  theory  is  invented  that  for 
each  life  a  new  soul  is  separately  then  and  there 
created  by  the  creator  God. 

Within  the  past  few  decades  the  new  psychology 
has  seriously  taken  up  the  matter  of  studying  the 
nature  and  characteristics  of  the  soul  by  the  experi- 
mental method.  Previous  to  that  time  experimental 
science  had  occupied  itself  almost  exclusively  in  the 
investigation  of  material  objects  and  motions.  Any 
alleged  fact  or  phenomenon  which  did  not  come 
under  that  class  was  either  set  aside  as  an  illusion 
and  fraud,  or  at  least  was  rejected  as  not  coming 
within  the  proper  field  of  its  investigations.  But  at 
length  the  conviction  gained  ground  that  science 
had  no  right  to  select  and  reject  any  facts  of  any 
kind  whatsoever  from  its  investigations.     The  result 


PERSON   OF   CHRIST  257 

has  been  the  thorough  investigation  and  study  in 
the  same  way  and  spirit  which  has  brought  such 
marvellous  results  in  the  physical  sphere  of  a  vast 
range  of  facts  and  phenomena,  some  of  them  normal 
and  some  of  them  so  exceedingly  abnormal  as  to 
seem  bordering  upon  the  supernatural  and  miracu- 
lous. 

We  need  not  be  surprised  that  some  of  the  things 
thus  discovered  and  scientifically  proved  are  the  direct 
opposite  of  the  ordinary  conceptions  we  have  held 
as  to  the  matters  concerned.  It  is  always  so  when 
science  undertakes  an  exact  and  exhaustive  investi- 
gation of  any  subject.  Thus  the  discoveries  of 
science  wrought  a  complete  revolution  in  our  ideas 
of  the  nature  and  motions  of  the  sun  and  stars,  of 
the  age  and  character  of  this  earth,  and  of  many 
other  things.  It  will  not  be  strange,  then,  if  exact 
and  exhaustive  investigation  should  cause  equally 
great  revolution  in  our  ideas  as  to  some  of  the 
questions  relating  to  the  nature  and  characteristics 
of  the  soul. 

One  range  of  facts,  exceedingly  interesting  and 
far  reaching  in  its  implications,  and  one  that  has 
long  been  under  careful  observation,  is  what  is 
called  "  double  consciousness  "  or  "  plural  person- 
ality." While,  of  course,  much  mystery  still  re- 
mains, and  we  can  by  no  means  say  that  the  matter 
is  fully  understood,  yet  enough  has  been  fully  dem- 
onstrated to  prove  incorrect  our  ordinary  conception 
that  unity  of  being  must  necessarily  compel  unity  of 
consciousness. 


258  CHRISTOLOGY 

I  have  given  some  notes  on  this  subject  in 
Appendix  C,  so  will  not  go  into  any  thorough 
presentation  and  discussion  of  the  matter  here.  It 
is  a  well-known  and  recognized  phenomenon,  ade- 
quately described  and  discussed  in  many  modern 
text-books  of  psychology.  It  is  a  state  often  met 
with  in  diseased  subjects,  and  the  same  state  can  be 
readily  produced  experimentally  in  the  psychologist's 
laboratory  in  perfectly  healthy  subjects.  We  may 
not  yet  fully  know  the  underlying  reasons  or  causes, 
but  the  facts  themselves  are  of  frequent  occurrence 
and  most  thoroughly  attested  observation,  and  it  is 
the  facts  themselves,  not  their  underlying  causes  and 
explanations,  that  are  of  value  to  us  here  in  this 
discussion.  For  we  make  no  more  claim  to  explain 
the  ground  of  this  appearance  of  plurality  of  person 
in  the  deity  than  in  man.  It  is  only  the  fact  of  such  an 
appearance  of  plurality  that  we  know  in  either  case. 


MULTIPLE   PERSONALITY 

There  are  several  ways  in  which  this  multiple 
consciousness  manifests  itself,  and  several  degrees 
and  varieties  of  its  manifestation.  There  are  in- 
stances on  record  in  which  a  person  by  some  acci- 
dent or  disease  lost  all  knowledge  and  conscious- 
ness of  his  past  life,  and  began  to  learn  and  live  all 
over  again,  in  apparently  the  status  of  a  new-born 
child  just  come  into  the  world.  This  is  the  most 
simple  and  fundamental  form  of  the  phenomena. 
(See  Appendix  C.) 


PERSON   OF  CHRIST  259 

A  next  advance  is  where  a  person,  having  thus 
lost  all  consciousness  of  his  past  and  begun  a  new 
life  with  a  new  consciousness,  afterwards  experi- 
enced a  change  by  which  all  the  knowledge  he 
had  previous  to  his  former  change  came  back  into 
consciousness,  and  all  the  knowledge  and  experi- 
ences acquired  since  that  time  passed  out  of  con- 
sciousness. He  has  taken  up  his  life  just  where  he 
left  it  at  the  accident  or  sickness,  and  all  the  subse- 
quent interval  is  separated  out  just  as  much  as  if  it 
had  been  lived  by  another  individual.  In  many 
cases  the  two  states  have  been  known  to  alternate, 
and  for  days  or  months  the  knowledge  and  experi- 
ences of  one  state  would  be  in  his  consciousness,  and 
those  of  the  second  state  be  entirely  absent,  then  for 
the  next  period  of  days  or  months  the  knowledge 
and  experiences  of  the  second  state  only  would  be 
in  his  consciousness,  and  all  of  the  other  state  absent. 
As  far  as  his  consciousness  is  concerned  it  is  precisely 
the  same  as  though  two  different  individuals  were 
living  his  life,  one  living  a  term  of  days  or  months 
and  then  the  other  living  a  term  of  days  or  months, 
and  then  the  first  again  living  for  another  term,  and 
so  on  alternately. 

In  the  above  cases  the  consciousnesses  are  mutu- 
ally exclusive,  and  the  person  in  one  state  has  no 
knowledge  of  any  of  the  consciousnesses  of  the  other 
state.  But  there  are  other  cases  where  the  person 
has  at  one  and  the  same  time  a  knowledge  of  the 
content  of  both  states  of  consciousness,  and  they 
seem  to  him  to  be  the  consciousnesses  and  experi- 


26o  CHRISTOLOGY 

ences  of  two  different  individuals.  This  is  a  phe- 
nomenon that  is  very  often  seen  in  insane  persons. 
Insanity,  however,  is  only  the  mind  working  ab- 
normally, and  its  experiences  show  the  capacities 
and  character  of  the  mind  or  soul  just  as  truly  as  the 
experiences  of  the  normal  state. 

There  are  cases  of  this  simultaneous  duality  or 
plurality  of  consciousness  in  persons  who  in  all 
other  respects  are  adjudged  to  be  entirely  sane.  In 
a  recent  case  treated  and  published  by  a  physician 
in  Boston,  and  afterwards  described  in  several  of  the 
popular  magazines,  the  person  concerned  seemed  to 
have  four  states,  or  four  separate  consciousnesses,  or 
personalities.  At  least  sometimes  one  of  the  per- 
sonalities would  seem  not  only  to  know  of  the  exist- 
ence of  one  or  more  of  the  others,  but  would  know 
more  or  less  of  the  things  it  had  done,  though  as 
done  by  another  person,  would  do  things  for  its 
sake,  either  to  assist  it  or  to  harass  and  distress  it, 
precisely  as  one  person  would  of  another,  and  would 
have  the  feeling  of  rivalry,  and  that  the  other  person 
or  concrete  of  consciousness  was  trying  to  come  into 
control  as  the  dominant  consciousness  of  the  indi- 
vidual. In  these  and  various  other  ways  these  dif- 
ferent consciousnesses  would  feel  and  act  towards 
each  other  precisely  as  different  persons. 

In  the  next  place, — all  these  phenomena  can  be 
produced  at  will  in  the  psychological  laboratory  by 
processes  commonly  classed  under  the  name  of  hyp- 
notism. A  person  can  be  made  to  seem  to  himself 
to  be  an  entirely  different  person,  to  lose  entirely  all 


PERSON  OF  CHRIST  261 

his  own  knowledge  and  memories  and  the  thoughts 
and  acts  of  this  period  will  only  be  remembered 
when  he  is  again  put  into  a  similar  hypnotic  condi- 
*  tion.  The  significance  of  this  fact,  I  may  say  in 
passing,  is  to  show  that  all  these  phenomena  seen  in 
abnormal  or  insane  individuals  are  not  excrescences 
in  some  way  fastening  themselves  upon  their  minds 
or  spirits,  but  are  merely  states  or  activities  of  the 
mind  or  spirit  which  they  have  always  had  the  capac- 
ity for,  since  the  equivalent  phenomena  can  be  pro- 
duced at  will  in  a  normal  mind  under  appropriate 
manipulation. 

There  is  still  one  more  stage  to  be  described  to 
complete  the  series.  This  would  be  cases  where  the 
two  selves  or  apparent  persons  were  present  in  the 
individual,  both  active  and  conscious  at  the  same 
time  but  each  unconscious  of  the  other.  It  would 
naturally  be  difficult  to  identify  or  prove  such  a 
state  if  it  actually  existed.  The  two  selves  are 
often  seen  alternatively  active  and  conscious  but 
the  difficulty  is  to  demonstrate  that  the  other  self 
is  conscious  while  the  first  is  active,  and  especially 
to  have  them  both  active  at  the  same  time,  while 
mutually  unconscious  of  each  other,  since  the  ac- 
tivities must  both  be  performed  through  the  same 
body. 

It  can  be  accomplished,  however,  by  means  of 
automatic  writing  by  an  anaesthetic  hand.  In  this 
case  the  normal  self  is  entirely  unconscious  of  any 
activity  of  the  anaesthetic  hand,  and  that  hand  is 
under  the  control  and  wielded  by  the  secondary  self. 


262  CHRISTOLOGY 

The  hand  may  be  hidden  by  a  screen  from  the  eyes 
of  the  person  so  that  he,  in  his  normal  self,  is  en- 
tirely unconscious  of  that  hand  or  anything  it  does. 
The  normal  self  may  be  engaged  in  conversation  or 
any  other  occupation  while  the  anaesthetic  hand  is 
made  to  do  various  things.  It  can  be  made  to  write 
things  by  appropriate  stimulation,  to  correct  in  re- 
writing the  spelling  of  words  it  has  purposely  been 
made  to  write  wrongly,  to  compose  and  write  long 
paragraphs  or  essays  and  to  do  other  things  which 
show  not  only  automatic  action  but  real  reasoned 
action  and  consciousness.  As  far  as  it  is  possible  to 
test,  its  actions  are  just  as  rational  and  just  as  inde- 
pendent of  and  unknown  to  the  primary,  normal  self 
as  though  this  hand  belonged  to  some  other  man 
and  that  man  were  doing  the  things  that  it  does. 
Here  we  have  then  the  full  phenomenon  of  one  mind 
or  soul  acting  simultaneously  as  two  independent 
persons. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  this  matter  fully  for 
it  is  one  of  the  well-known  matters  of  modern  psy- 
chologic study.  Not  that  any  satisfactory  explana- 
tion has  yet  been  made  of  all  these  facts,  but  this 
one  result  has  ensued,  namely,  that  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  the  nature  and  fundamental  character  of 
personality  has  become  entirely  an  open  question. 
The  old  idea  that  personality  is  just  the  soul's  im- 
mediate consciousness  of  itself  is  no  longer  tenable. 
For  any  one  now,  as  has  so  long  been  done,  to  ob- 
ject to  the  idea  of  one  spiritual  being  existing  in 
three  separate  persons  in  the  "  Trinity  "  as  a  scien- 


PERSON   OF   CHRIST  263 

tific  impossibility  and  self-contradiction  is  merely  to 
confess  his  ignorance  of  the  modern  psychology. 

NOT  AN   EXPLANATION   BUT    A   PARALLEL  OF  THE 
ALLEGED   PLURALITY   IN   GOD'S   MANIFESTATIONS 

Now  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  we  must  con- 
sider the  relations  between  the  "  three  persons  in  the 
divine  Trinity  "  as  the  same  as  those  between  the 
primary  and  secondary  consciousness  in  hypnotized 
persons,  or  between  the  divided  personalities  appear- 
ing in  abnormal  or  diseased  persons.  We  are  not 
shut  up  to  such  a  conclusion  at  all.  We  are  dealing 
with  an  infinite  subject  which  may  have  possibilities 
beyond  and  different  from  anything  we  have  ever 
seen  or  conceived.  What  the  above  outlined  psycho- 
logical facts  do  establish  is  that  all  the  current  ob- 
jections to  the  common  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  are 
entirely  unscientific.  The  current  objection  is  that 
it  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  consider  three  dis- 
tinct persons  having  mutual  relations  with  each  other 
to  be  one  and  the  same  spiritual  being, — one  God. 
But  that  is  not  only  possible,  but  often  occurs  in  the 
actual  experience  of  men.  Two  or  more  centres  of 
consciousness  can,  and  often  do,  appear  in  the  same 
man,  each  having  all  the  essential  characteristics  of 
a  separate  person,  namely,  consciousness,  memory, 
reason,  will,  and  the  feeling  of  identity,  and  more- 
over they  may  both  be  active  at  the  same  time  in 
the  same  body,  one  acting  through  one  part  and  the 
other  through  other  parts,  each  independent  of  and 
unconscious  of  the  other,  or  may  each  control  the 


264  CHRISTOLOGY 

whole  body  at  separate  or  alternate  times.  We  may 
not  be  able  to  explain  the  mechanism  of  it,  or  even 
to  conceive  how  it  is  possible,  but  of  the  fact  there 
can  be  no  question.  To  deny  that  the  same  unit  of 
being  or  spirit  can  operate  as  two  or  more  distinct 
persons,  merely  because  we  do  not  understand  how 
it  can  do  so,  is  now  as  unscientific  as  to  deny  that 
the  self  or  spirit  of  the  child  can  spring  from  that  of 
its  parents  merely  because  we  cannot  in  that  case 
either  explain  the  mechanism  of  it,  or  conceive  how 
it  is  possible. 

The  knowledge  of  these  facts  as  to  the  possibilities 
of  the  nature  of  spirit  leaves  the  field  open  for  any 
plausible  explanation  that  any  one  may  suggest,  or 
for  us  to  simply  accept  the  declarations  and  record 
as  revealing  a  credible  fact,  without  attempting  any 
explanation  at  all.  God  is  an  infinitely  great  Spirit. 
If  so  much  is  possible  in  the  little  spirit  of  man, 
surely  equally  much  may  be  possible  in  the  in- 
finitely greater  Spirit  of  God.  The  operations  of 
man's  spirit  are,  for  the  most  part,  confined  to  the 
narrow  limit  of  space  contained  in  his  body  while 
God's  Spirit  is  present  and  operating  throughout  the 
whole  expanse  of  infinite  extension.  If  in  the  little, 
hampered,  circumscribed  space  in  which  all  man's 
operations  are  performed  the  different  centres  of 
consciousness,  in  which  his  one  spirit  is  able  to 
manifest  itself,  are  able  to  sufficiently  separate  them- 
selves from  each  other  and  exhibit  such  a  degree 
of  mutual  independence  and  so  fully  the  character- 
istics   of    being    distinct    persons,   surely    a    spirit 


PERSON  OF  CHRIST  265 

operating  throughout  the  infinite  expanse  of  the 
whole  universe  might  in  some  way  be  able  to  exhibit 
all  the  essential  facts  of  two  or  more  persons,  mutu- 
ally separate  and  distinct,  and  operating  in  different 
locations  at  the  same  time,  and  yet  be  fundamen- 
tally one  and  the  same  being,  one  unit,  one  entity, 
one  God. 

Looked  at  from  this  light,  then,  what  are  the 
details  of  the  Bible  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  or  rather, 
what  are  the  Bible  expressions  and  teachings  that 
are  interpreted  into  the  forms  of  this  doctrine  ? 
Briefly  stated  they  are  as  follows  :  On  the  one  hand 
there  is  insistence  everywhere  in  the  Bible  on  the 
unity  of  God,  that  He  is  one  single  being  and  there 
is  but  one  God,  On  the  other  hand,  especially  in 
the  New  Testament,  there  are  expressions  used  that 
imply  plurality  and  mutual  separateness.  There  is 
record  there  of  a  person  appearing  among  men, 
associated  with  and  seen  by  them,  who  is  represented 
in  the  record  and  represents  Himself  to  be  a  visible 
revelation  of  God.  That  person  speaks  of  a  person 
called  by  Him  "  the  Father  "  to  whom  He  speaks  and 
prays  and  of  whom  He  speaks  as  not  only  sending 
Him  and  helping  Him,  but  also  specifically  as 
doing  acts  separate  and  distinct  from  His  acts.  He 
also  speaks  of  a  person,  whom  He  calls  "  the  Holy 
Spirit,"  whom  He  will  send  and  whom  the  Father 
will  send.  At  the  same  time  He  says  "  I  and  the 
Father  are  one."  "  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen 
the  Father"  and  similar  expressions.  He  also  uses 
expressions  that  imply  some  such  identity  between 


266  CHRISTOLOGY 

Himself  and  the  "  Holy  Spirit."  Also  equivalent 
forms  of  expression  are  used  by  the  other  New 
Testament  writers  about  these  three  persons. 

From  what  we  have  already  seen  above  of  the 
nature  of  man's  spirit  and  its  possibility  of  acting 
and  perceiving  simultaneously  through  two  or  more 
mutually  separate  centres  of  consciousness,  we  need 
have  not  the  slightest  difficulty  in  conceiving  that 
all  these  are  manifestations  of  one  and  the  same 
unit  of  being,  one  and  the  same  spirit,  the  one  God. 
The  appearance  of  fully  as  much  separateness  of 
personality  and  consciousness  and  mutual  objec- 
tivity of  being  and  activity  can  be  produced  in  a 
single  man  experimentally  in  the  psychological 
laboratory,  or  found  permanently  in  pathologically 
affected  persons.  And  since,  as  we  have  seen,  there 
are  not  only  one  but  two  different  ways  in  which  the 
one  unit  of  being  or  spirit  may  become  two  or  more 
persons  in  the  case  of  man,  namely,  natural  genera- 
tion of  a  child  and  this  multiple  personality,  in  the 
case  of  the  infinite  God  we  are  not  shut  up  to  sup- 
pose it  must  be  either  one  of  these  ways  but  may  be 
some  way  entirely  different.  Certainly  we  can  say 
that  all  these  forms  of  expression  or  teachings  as  to 
the  nature  and  manifestations  of  God  furnish  no 
difficulties  at  all  from  the  scientific  point  of  view. 

With  the  first  difficulty  removed  of  one  being,  God, 
existing  as  two  or  more  persons,  both  the  other  ob- 
jections noted  above  fall  away  of  themselves.  We 
have  seen  that  the  emergence  of  a  so-called  "  per- 
son "    with    consciousness,    will,    memory,  personal 


PERSON   OF  CHRIST  267 

identity  and  the  like,  is  a  function  or  activity  of  the 
spirit,  not  the  real  substance  of  the  spirit  itself,  and 
there  may  be  two  or  more  such  "  persons  "  emerging 
as  expressions  or  functions  of  one  and  the  same 
spirit.  There  is  therefore  not  anything  to  necessarily 
determine,  as  far  as  we  know,  what  must  be  the 
capacity,  or  relative  size,  so  to  speak,  of  any  one  of 
those  persons.  If  an  infinite  spirit  wished  to  exhibit 
and  exert  himself  in  the  form  of  a  person,  there 
certainly  would  be  no  limit  on  the  upward  side  to  his 
making  that  personality  as  great,  capable  and  every 
way  large,  as  he  might  wish.  Just  as  truly  there 
would  be  no  limit  in  the  other  direction  to  his  acting 
and  exerting  himself  in  another  personality  of  any 
other  dimension  or  capacity,  as  small  as  he  might 
wish.  This  is  quite  self-evident  when  we  come  to 
realize  that  "  personality "  is  not  an  expression 
meaning  the  totality  of  essence  but  merely  a  func- 
tion or  localized  energizing  of  that  essence.  There 
would  be  no  incongruity  in  an  infinite  being  perceiv- 
ing, appearing  and  acting  in  a  personality  the  size 
and  capacity  of  a  man's  personality  more  than  in  any 
other  size,  if  that  was  the  size  best  suited  to  his  pur- 
pose. 

As  to  the  third  objection ;  the  infinite  being  ap- 
pearing and  acting  in  a  certain  place  in  a  given 
small  manifestation  of  personality  would  not  affect  in 
the  slightest  his  simultaneous  infinite  immanence  in 
and  relations  to  the  vast  universe.  Being  present 
and  active  here  in  a  given  personality  does  not 
hinder  his  being  present  and  active  elsewhere  in  a 


268  CHRISTOLOGY 

personality  a  million  times  greater  or  infinitely 
great. 

It  is  no  objection  to  this  that  we  cannot  explain 
the  mechanism  of  how  it  can  be.  We  cannot  yet 
explain  the  mechanism  of  plural  personality  in  man. 
We  cannot  fully  explain  the  mechanism  of  personality 
itself.  It  is  not  strange  that  we  cannot  form  a  com- 
plete mental  picture  of  how  a  being  could  be  at  the 
same  time  manifested  here  as  a  small,  limited  person, 
while  at  the  same  time  also  in  infinite  extension  and 
power  controlling  all  the  vast  universe.  It  is  enough 
that  our  logic  confidently  confirms  the  reasonable- 
ness of  it.  We  have  observed  facts  of  an  equivalent 
nature,  and  so  this  cannot  be  impossible. 

We  need  not  at  all  attempt  to  go  into  a  considera- 
tion of  the  preexistence  or  the  eternal  existence  of 
this  Son  of  God,  nor  a  discussion  of  the  conception 
that  as  the  "  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity "  and 
separate  from  the  Father  He  was  exerting  infinite 
power  in  His  functions  of  directing  and  controlling 
the  universe  at  the  same  time  that  with  limited 
consciousness  and  power  He  was  going  through  the 
life  of  a  man  on  earth.  Those  are  all  mere  matters 
of  detail  which  science  has  nothing  to  say  about,  and 
which  it  is  for  revelation  and  revelation  alone  to 
declare.  Science,  however,  in  demonstrating  the 
main  proposition  has  removed  all  possible  scientific 
objection  to  these  also.  If  there  may  be  three  centres 
of  consciousness  or  three  personalities  in  the  same 
being  in  such  a  way  that  there  may  be  the  separate- 
ness   ordinarily   designated   by  the  terms  "  Father, 


PERSON   OF   CHRIST  269 

Son  and  Holy  Spirit,"  it  is  but  a  slight  extension  of 
the  same  principle  to  conceive  that  the  one  we  call 
"  the  Son "  might  also  present  a  further  duality  of 
consciousness  by  which  He  should  be  exerting  His 
infinite  knowledge  and  power  in  controlling  and 
ruling  the  universe  at  the  same  time  that  in  a  special 
consciousness  He  was  going  through  the  life  of  a 
man,  with  limited  knowledge,  limited  power  and 
limited  perceptions.  And  all  the  time  it  would  be 
perfectly  correct  for  that  limited  being  to  say  He  was 
the  great  being  we  call  the  Son  of  God,  and  to  say 
He  was  then  in  heaven  (John  iii.  13)  and  had  ex- 
isted eternally. 

TWO  "  NATURES  "  IN  CHRIST 

If  we  take  up  next  the  question  of  the  "  two 
natures"  in  the  person  of  the  Christ,  which  has 
often  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion,  in  the 
light  of  all  we  have  just  seen  the  question  solves 
itself.  Understood  in  the  light  of  what  we  have  just 
seen  there  is  no  question  to  solve. 

In  the  older  theology  it  was  customary  to  speak  of 
"  two  natures,  which  were  united  but  not  in  any  degree 
mixed,"  both  possessed  by  the  same  person,  almost 
as  though  a  "nature"  was  a  concrete  something 
that  a  being  could  put  on  or  ofi  like  a  garment.  Of 
course  it  was  explained  that  that  was  not  the  meaning, 
and  that  it  was  a  special  use  of  the  terms,  and  as  a 
hypothetical  or  diagrammatic  expression  of  the  situa- 
tion perhaps  that  was  as  good  a  definition  as  could 
be  made  from  the  standpoint  of  the  old  psychology. 


270  CHRISTOLOGY 

But  it  is  a  great  relief  not  to  have  to  make  such  a 
mysterious  and  impossible  definition  and  use  of 
terms. 

It  is  quite  easy  now  to  define  that  the  "  divine 
nature  "  of  Christ  means  that  the  being  who  went 
through  all  the  experiences  recorded  was  in  very 
truth  the  being  who  had  existed  from  all  eternity  as 
divine,  the  Son  of  God.  His  "  human  nature " 
means  that  that  being,  in  all  those  acts  and  experi- 
ences acted  with  the  same  measure  and  kind  of  con- 
sciousness as  all  common  men,  with  the  same  degree 
and  kind  of  knowledge,  power,  perception,  sensation 
and  in  the  same  way  in  every  respect  as  is  common 
with  all  men. 

We  have  already  seen  that  on  psychological 
grounds  there  is  no  obstacle  to  conceiving  that  the 
same  being  might  exist  everywhere  as  an  in- 
finite being  using  infinite  power  and  knowledge  in 
controlling  the  universe,  and  at  the  same  time  func- 
tionate through  a  special  consciousness  with  limited 
power  and  knowledge.  There  is  no  putting  on  or 
off  of  a  "nature."  There  is  no  change  of  attributes, 
but  the  one  divine  being  merely  does  what  it  was 
always  perfectly  in  accordance  with  his  nature  to  do. 
How  he  could  do  it  we  can  explain  no  more  now 
than  before,  but  we  can  say  that  a  strikingly  analo- 
gous thing  is  done  often  by  men  now,  and  can  be 
caused  to  be  done  experimentally  in  the  psycholo- 
gist's laboratory.  Namely,  a  man  can,  aside  from 
his  ordinary,  living  self  and  personality,  live  in 
another  separate  self  and  personality,  in  possession 


PERSON   OF  CHRIST  27 1 

of  only  the  knowledge,  abilities  and  characteristics 
that  have  been  acquired  during  the  life  of  that  self 
or  personality.  That  is  a  thing  that  is  well  known 
and  fully  attested  as  a  phenomenon  possible  to  men. 
We  need  not  at  all  suppose  that  the  infinite  Son  of 
God  in  becoming  man  did  it  in  the  identical  way 
that  man  is  observed  to  do  it.  But  if  man  can  do  it 
we  cannot  doubt  that  it  is  possible  for  a  greater 
spirit  than  man  to  do  an  analogous  thing,  in  some 
way,  whatever  is  most  suitable  to  his  desires  and 
purposes.  The  method  is  not  demonstrated  but  the 
possibility  certainly  is. 

We  may  therefore  conceive,  when  thinking  of 
Jesus  Christ,  that  in  all  His  consciousness  He  was 
exactly  on  the  plane  of  other  men,  that  as  a  con- 
scious personality  He  actually  was  a  man  in  every 
respect,  with  no  more  knowledge  than  any  other 
man  might  have  had  under  the  circumstances,  and 
all  that  knowledge  gained  precisely  as  other  men 
gain  knowledge,  and  all  His  consciousness  positively 
Hmited  to  that.  All  this,  while  at  the  same  time  He 
was  the  same  identical  being  who  created  the  uni- 
verse and  existed  from  eternity  as  the  Son  of  God. 
It  was  not  merely  God  uniting  on  to  Himself  a  hu- 
man body  and  human  soul  which  He  forced  to  go 
through  certain  experiences  and  sufferings.  Nor 
was  it  a  mere  human  soul  that  by  some  dispensation 
of  God  became  exceedingly  great  and  competent 
and  was  used  by  God  as  the  instrument  through 
which  to  reveal  His  character  and  effect  His  other 
purposes.     It  was  the  divine  being  Himself,  just  as 


272  CHRISTOLOGY 

truly  as  I  am  the  same  being  that  existed  and  acted 
yesterday  and  a  year  ago.  It  was  that  divine  being 
Himself  that  experienced  all  the  experiences,  felt  all 
the  sensations,  originated  all  the  impulses  and  in 
every  way  was  the  subject  of  all  the  life,  and  the 
death,  which  was  there  exhibited.  That  is  the  im- 
pression that  is  unquestionably  given  by  the  text  of 
the  record  as  it  is  given  in  the  New  Testament,  and, 
as  we  have  above  shown,  the  latest  discoveries  of 
psychological  science  declare  that  that  is  not  at  all 
impossible  or  inconsistent  with  what  we  know  of  the 
possibilities  of  man's  spirit  and  being. 


II 

MIRACLES 

PREJUDICE 

IT  will  be  appropriate  here  in  considering  the 
person  and  life  of  Jesus  to  consider  somewhat 
briefly  the  question  of  miracles.  It  must  be 
freely  admitted  that  apparently  to  the  greater  part 
of  the  scientific  world  the  whole  subject  of  miracles 
is  decidedly  unwelcome.  It  is  the  province  of 
science  to  study  natural  laws.  These  natural  laws 
are  found  everywhere  uniformly  working,  and  it  is 
because  of  the  universality  and  uniformity  of  the 
working  of  natural  laws  that  it  is  possible  to  have 
any  science  at  all.  More  than  that,  the  further  we 
investigate  the  more  perfectly  articulated  and  uni- 
versally extensive  we  find  the  working  of  these 
natural  laws  to  be.  Not  only  have  we  had  opened 
up  through  their  means  vast  regions  of  knowledge 
that  we  had  no  conception  of  before,  but  large 
ranges  of  phenomena,  which  before  were  considered 
mysterious  and  assigned  perhaps  to  supernatural 
agency,  have  been  fully  accounted  for  and  given 
their  appropriate  place  under  the  ordinary  working 
of  these  same  natural  laws.  It  is  only  natural  there- 
fore that  scientific  men  should  wish  and  hope  to 
bring  all  phenomena  that  exist  or  ever  have  existed 
under  the  explanation  of  this  same  agency,  natural 

273 


274  CHRISTOLOGY 

law.  So  many  times  when  accounts  of  seemingly 
mysterious  facts  have  been  investigated  they  have 
either  been  able  to  fully  explain  and  classify  them 
under  natural  causes,  or  else  prove  the  reports  false 
and  fraudulent,  that  they  not  unnaturally  believe  the 
same  can  be  done  in  all  cases,  and  there  never  have 
been  any  facts  that  cannot  be  thus  explained  and 
classified. 

As  the  result  of  this  it  has  come  to  pass  that  not 
only  in  the  scientific  world,  but  in  the  religious 
world  as  well  there  has  arisen  a  decidedly  unfriendly 
feeling  towards  all  accounts  of  the  miraculous. 
There  is  a  disposition  to  say  as  little  as  possible 
about  miracles,  to  refrain  entirely  from  appealing  to 
them  as  proof  of  anything,  and  to  at  least  wish  that 
there  were  some  way  of  entirely  eliminating  them 
from  the  Christian  system  and  teaching. 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  those  who  insist,  and 
with  good  show  of  reason,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
eliminate  the  miraculous  from  the  Christian  system 
without  destroying  the  very  foundations  of  the  sys- 
tem. The  history  of  Jesus  Christ  is  characteristic- 
ally the  history  of  a  miracle  worker.  The  miracu- 
lous is  not  an  accidental  embellishment  but  it  is  the 
essential  tone  and  groundwork  of  the  picture. 

FALSE  DEFINITION  OF  MIRACLES 
A  great  part  of  this  hostility  to  miracles  grows  out 
of  an  entirely  false  definition  and  conception  of  what 
a  miracle  is.     It  is  defined  that  a  miracle  is  "  a  vio- 
lation of  the  laws  of  nature,"  that  it  is  something 


MIRACLES  275 

that  occurs  "  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature."  If  by 
"  laws  of  nature "  is  merely  meant  the  observed 
sequence  of  events, — the  fact  that  things  have  been 
observed  to  happen  in  a  certain  order, — then  it 
would  be  correct  to  call  a  miracle  contrary  to,  or  a 
violation  of,  the  laws  of  nature.  But  with  that  defi- 
nition we  must  also  say  that  every  event  that  has 
occurred  but  once  or  been  observed  but  once  is 
"  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature." 

It  is  more  legitimate,  however,  to  define  "  the 
laws  of  nature,"  not  as  the  mere  classified  statement 
of  observed  appearances  and  sequences,  but  as  indi- 
cating the  powers  or  agencies  behind  those  observed 
phenomena,  whose  essential  nature  it  is  to  always 
act  in  a  uniform  and  observed  way.  Thus,  in  this 
sense,  by  the  "  law  of  gravitation  "  we  do  not  mean 
merely  the  observed  phenomenon  of  bodies  falling 
to  the  ground  and  the  observed  rate  of  their  fall,  but 
we  mean  the  agency,  whatever  it  is,  which  makes 
them  fall,  and  whose  nature  it  is  to  act  always  in  a 
certain  way.  We  do  indeed  use  the  term  laws  of 
nature  with  the  former  meaning  as  well  as  with  the 
latter,  but  the  two  uses  of  the  term  are  radically  dif- 
ferent, and  it  is  a  cause  of  great  fallacy  to  confuse  the 
two  meanings.  With  the  former  definition  it  is  no 
disparagement  to  say  that  a  thing  is  "  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  nature,"  for  the  world  is  and  always  has 
been  full  of  things  that  in  that  sense  are  "  contrary 
to  the  laws  of  nature."  Every  unique  event,  and 
everything  that  happens  for  the  first  time  is  in  that 
sense  "  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature."     And  not 


276  CHRISTOLOGY 

only  so,  but  if  Jesus  or  Paul  raised  the  dead  or 
healed  sick  people  by  a  word  more  than  once,  that 
kind  of  acts,  simply  through  the  fact  of  their  being 
performed  and  observed  several  times,  become  part 
of  the  laws  of  nature  just  as  much  as  the  rising  of 
the  sun  or  the  falling  of  an  apple  to  the  ground. 

The  only  sense  in  which  there  is  any  presumption 
against  things  happening  "  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
nature,"  is  when  the  term  is  defined  in  the  latter 
way.  When  by  laws  of  nature  we  mean  the 
agencies  behind  the  events  and  producing  them, 
which  agencies  we  are  constrained  to  believe,  must 
always  functionate  in  the  one  definite  way  which  is 
their  essence  or  nature.  In  this  definition,  when  we 
say  of  an  event  that  it  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
nature,  we  mean  that  it  either  occurred  without  any 
agency  to  produce  it,  or  else  that  the  agency  that 
produced  it  in  doing  so  acted  contrary  to  the  way  it 
is  its  nature  to  act.  There  is  the  strongest  presump- 
tion against  anything  happening  contrary  to  the 
laws  of  nature  in  that  definition. 

For  instance,  suppose  a  man,  for  the  first  time,  in 
working  with  an  electric  machine,  observed  two  ob- 
jects, showing  a  tendency  not  to  move  towards  each 
other  but  to  move  away  from  each  other.  If  that 
effect  were  produced  by  the  same  agency,  which 
draws  falling  bodies  to  the  ground  and  planets 
towards  each  other,  it  would  properly  be  called  a 
violation  of  the  laws  of  nature,  because  that  agency 
would  be  acting  in  a  way  contrary  to  what  it  is  its 
nature  to  act  and  to  the  way  in  which  it  has  acted  in 


MIRACLES  277 

all  other  cases,  namely,  repelling  instead  of  attract- 
ing. So  great  would  be  the  presumption  against 
that  occurring  that  he  would  say  without  hesitation 
that  this  was  not  produced  by  that  agent  but  was 
produced  by  some  other  agency.  Every  event  must 
be  produced  by  some  adequate  agency,  and  it  must 
be  an  agency  that  is  definitely  and  precisely  adapted 
to  produce  that  event.  We  may  notice,  however,  in 
passing,  that  we  cannot  say  "  an  agent  definitely 
adapted  to  produce  that  event  and  no  other,"  We 
cannot  say,  a  priori,  that  the  same  agent  may  not 
be  adapted  to  produce  any  one  of  a  number  of 
diverse  events.  For  instance,  oxygen  seems  to  have 
the  power  to  make  a  great  many  different  kinds  of 
combinations  with  different  substances,  or  even  with 
the  same  substance. 

CONTROL  OF  SPIRIT  OVER  PHYSICAL  ENERGY 
Another  very  great  source  of  fallacy  and  error  in 
considering  this  question  is  that  most  scientists  pre- 
fer to  limit  their  attention  entirely  to  purely  physical 
and  mechanical  agencies.  But  there  is  another  kind 
of  agency  which  we  must  take  account  of  if  we  be- 
lieve there  is  such  a  thing  as  volition,  or  mental  con- 
trol by  men  over  their  actions.  We  considered  this 
matter  to  some  extent  above.  (See  p.  50  flf .  and  Ap- 
pendix A.)  While  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  all  the  activities  of  men's  bodies  of  every  kind  are 
immediately  the  product  of  mechanical  and  physical 
agencies  or  energies,  operating  precisely  in  the  way 
that  it  is  their  nature  to  operate,  yet  in  the  case  of 


278  CHRISTOLOGY 

many  or  all  of  them,  there  is  another  agency  con- 
trolling those  energies,  and  the  acts  would  not  have 
taken  place  at  the  time  they  did  had  there  not  been 
something  done  by  that  extra-physical  agency, 
usually  called  the  soul  or  life  of  the  man. 

It  is  a  principle,  then,  that  must  be  fully  recognized 
and  taken  into  account,  that  it  is  a  property  of  spirit 
to  control  the  activity  of  mechanical  energy.  This 
is  just  as  much  a  part  of  "  the  laws  of  nature  "  as 
that  gravitation  attracts  or  heat  expands  bodies. 
That  is  simply  the  nature  of  that  agency,  which  is 
one  of  the  agencies  operative  in  the  universe.  As 
to  the  quantity  of  energy  that  our  spirit  or  will  thus 
controls  at  any  one  time,  it  may  be  an  exceedingly 
small  amount  in  a  single  brain  cell  or  possibly  it  may 
be  much  larger  than  we  think,  but  in  any  case  the 
amount  is  not  significant.  It  is  the  principle  that  is 
all  important,  namely,  that  it  is  the  nature  of  spirit  to 
exert  that  control.  A  spirit  sufficiently  large  might 
control  any  amount  desired,  and  even  by  controlling 
the  small  amount  that  man's  spirit  is  able  to  control, 
he  is  able  indirectly  to  bring  about  almost  any 
amount  or  kind  of  activity  in  any  place  and  at  any 
time  that  he  chooses. 

Now  it  is  not  true  that  all  things  in  the  whole 
course  of  the  world's  activities  are  determined  by 
the  natural  working  and  interacting  of  physical 
energies  alone  and  undirected. 

For  instance :  a  vast  reef  of  rock  in  New  York 
harbour,  which  under  the  ordinary  operation  of  the 
mechanical  forces  and  agencies  of  the  world  must 


MIRACLES  279 

have  lain  there  practically  unchanged  for  millions 
of  years,  was  one  day  suddenly  shattered  to  pieces 
and  afterwards  all  taken  away,  all  as  the  result  of 
activities  which  the  agency  called  spirit  had  as- 
sembled and  controlled  for  that  very  purpose.  Now 
energy  is  an  invisible  entity,  and  we  can  conceive 
of  a  spirit  so  much  larger  than  a  man's  spirit  that  it 
would  be  able  to  control  directly  and  at  once  the 
full  amount  necessary  to  do  that  great  act.  Had  it 
done  so  and  assembled  all  the  energy  there  without 
bringing  any  visible  material  with  it,  only  just  the 
bare  energy,  every  one  would  consider,  and  properly 
consider,  that  it  was  one  of  the  greatest  miracles 
that  had  ever  been  recorded.  And  yet  there  would 
only  be  a  little  difference  in  details  and  no  difference 
at  all  in  principle  from  the  way  it  actually  was  done 
a  few  years  ago.  It  was  all  done  by  the  agency 
called  spirit  controlling  mechanical  energy  in  such 
a  way  as  to  assemble  the  necessary  amount  of  energy 
in  the  place  necessary  to  do  the  work,  and  causing 
it  all  to  act  just  at  the  time  desired,  none  of  which 
things  would  or  could  have  happened  as  they  did 
by  the  natural  course  of  the  working  of  the  mechan- 
ical energies  as  they  naturally  would  have  operated. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  spirit  holding,  and  at  its  will 
discharging  in  the  central  brain  cell  the  infinitesimal 
quantum  of  mechanical  energy  that  starts  each 
volitional  act,  is  an  operation  the  same  in  nature  and 
only  different  in  degree  from  the  great  miraculous 
discharge  that  we  have  above  supposed. 

Such  a  miracle  or  occurrence  would  be  an  adequate 


28o  CHRISTOLOGY 

type  of  the  great  majority  of  the  miracles  recorded 
in  the  Bible.  All  the  miracles  of  healing,  which 
form  by  far  the  largest  part  of  all,  are  precisely  of 
that  character  essentially.  Nearly  all  sickness  is  the 
result  of  a  wrong  working  of  physical  or  mechanical 
energies,  and  to  control  and  reverse  those  hurtful 
operations  would  restore  the  normal  state  and  bring 
health.  Any  miracle  causing  death  or  destruction 
would  be  of  the  same  character.  Even  a  miracle 
restoring  a  dead  man  to  life  would  only  be  the  same 
with  the  addition  of  directive  control  over  the  de- 
parted spirit  of  the  dead  man.  Even  such  great  acts 
as  occurred  at  the  crossing  of  the  Red  Sea  and  the 
Jordan,  and  the  falling  of  the  walls  of  Jericho,  which 
the  record  itself  seems  to  indicate  were  events  pro- 
duced naturally  by  natural  causes  and  merely  timed 
so  as  to  fulfill  the  desired  and  promised  purpose, — 
yet  if  we  should  choose  to  consider  them  as  produced 
immediately  and  directly  without  the  operation  of 
ordinary  natural  causes,  they  would  not  be  at  all 
different  or  more  wonderful  than  the  hypothetical 
miracle  which  we  have  supposed  above,  to  remove 
"  Hellgate  rock  "  from  the  harbour,  and  which  we 
have  shown  is  not  different  in  principle  at  all  from 
what  takes  place  every  time  we  perform  a  volitional 
act.  Such  acts  as  walking  on  the  water  and  stilling 
the  tempest  were  wholly  of  that  character,  and  the 
wonderful  drafts  of  fishes  were  but  special  knowledge 
either  with  or  without  acts  of  the  same  character. 

There  remain  one  or  two  others,  the  multiplying 
the  bread  to  feed  the  multitude  and  the  changing 


MIRACLES  281 

the  water  into  wine,  whicli  seem  to  imply  a  control 
not  only  of  energy  but  of  material  substance  as  well. 
Though  man's  spirit  cannot,  so  far  as  we  know, 
perform  acts  of  the  same  nature  as  these  yet  it  is  not 
much  to  suppose  that  a  spirit  great  enough  to  be  in 
control  of  all  the  energies  in  the  universe  might 
some  way  also  have  the  facilities  for  doing  such 
things  as  these. 

PHILOSOPHICAL  OBJECTIONS 
But  after  all  the  most  serious  objection  to  miracles 
in  men's  minds  is  not  on  the  physical  but  on  the 
moral  and  logical  side.  They  say :  It  does  not 
seem  reasonable  and  in  accord  with  God's  character 
that  He  should  work  miracles.  Of  course  He  could 
but  He  would  not  and  has  not  done  so.  They  say 
in  the  first  place :  All  the  phenomena  we  have  ever 
observed  can  be  referred  to  natural,  finite  causes  ; 
those  that  seem  to  be  otherwise  are  found  on  closer 
investigation  to  be  either  fraudulent  tricks  or  else 
the  cause  is  merely  a  little  obscure  but  still  finite 
and  natural.  Moreover  the  system  of  natural  laws 
and  natural  causation  is  so  marvellously  extensive, 
adaptive  and  efficient  that  it  is  natural  to  expect  it 
to  furnish  the  explanation  of  everything  that  occurs, 
if  we  only  understood  it  fully  enough. 

In  the  second  place  they  say  :  It  would  be  a  mark 
of  weakness  in  God  to  have  to  intervene  to  supply 
by  special  act  something  that  was  needed.  So 
infinitely  many  needs  have  all  been  provided  for 
naturally  in  the  great  scheme  of  natural  causation 


282  CHRISTOLOGY 

that  it  is  hard  to  think  that  there  are  some  few  that 
have  to  be  suppHed  by  special  acts.  A  perfect  and 
infinite  creator  would  have  provided  for  these  also 
as  He  did  for  all  the  others.  It  argues  imperfection 
if  there  was  still  some  remnant  that  could  not  be 
provided  for  in  the  first  constitution  of  things  and 
had  to  be  supplied  by  a  special  act  at  a  later  time 
when  the  need  developed. 

In  the  third  place  they  say  :  To  use  a  marvellous 
and  incomprehensible  work  as  proof  of  a  moral  or 
religious  truth  is  illogical  and  insincere.  It  might 
browbeat  men's  intelligence  and  force  them  to  ac- 
cept the  dogma  but  it  would  be  doing  violence  to 
man's  reasonable  nature  and  would  not  be  legitimate 
proof  at  all,  and  utterly  unworthy  to  be  considered 
God's  way  of  dealing  with  His  reasonable  creatures. 
For  instance,  suppose  I  say :  "  Man  ought  to  tell 
the  truth,"  or  "  Man  ought  to  obey  every  selfish  im- 
pulse of  his  nature,"  and  immediately  after  saying  it 
proceed  to  raise  a  dead  man  to  life  or  call  down  fire 
from  heaven.  That  might  frighten  men  into  believ- 
ing both  these  propositions,  but  it  would  be  no  legit- 
imate proof  of  either  one  of  them.  They  each  stand 
or  fall  according  as  there  is  legitimate,  adequate, 
reasonable  evidence  bearing  on  the  case,  and  the 
wonderful  work  that  I  had  done  would  have  no  bear- 
ing on  the  case  one  way  or  the  other. 

PLACE  IN  THE  EVOLUTION  SCHEME 
All    these    objections,  however,   grow    out    of  a 
wrong  conception  of  the  reason  and  use  of  miracles. 


MIRACLES  283 

They  are  not,  in  the  first  place,  merely  a  sporadic 
and  unclassifiable  series  of  divine  activities.  They 
are  not,  in  the  second  place,  acts  designed  to  make 
up  some  deficiency  and  supply  some  unforeseen  or 
unavoidable  need  in  the  system  of  things.  Nor  are 
they,  in  the  third  place,  primarily  designed  as  the 
proof  of  moral  or  religious  truths.  They  are  facts 
which  have  just  as  regular  and  necessary  a  place 
in  the  framework  of  the  great  evolutionary  sys- 
tem as  any  other  fact  in  that  system.  They  are  as 
much  a  part  of  the  scheme  as  designed  from  the 
beginning,  and  as  necessary  to  the  carrying  out  and 
completion  of  that  scheme  as  the  law  of  gravitation, 
or  the  human  powers  of  memory  and  perception. 
They  do  not  supply  a  defect,  for  no  defect  ever 
existed,  but  a  fatal  defect  would  have  existed  which 
would  have  cut  short  the  whole  progress  of  evolu- 
tion if  that  system  had  not  included  and  made  pro- 
vision for  just  these  facts.  They  are  all  constituent 
parts  of  the  one  great  perfect  scheme  as  that  scheme 
was  perfectly  conceived  in  the  beginning  and  has 
been  consistently  carried  out  all  through  the  ages. 

In  reality  the  one  purpose  of  all  miracles  in  the 
evolution  system, — or  in  the  divine  economy,  which 
is  the  same  thing, — is  to  furnish  acts  of  personal 
fellowship  on  the  part  of  God  towards  men,  so  that 
they  may  be  able  to  have  a  feeling  of  fellowship 
towards  Him,  The  reason  for  them  is  the  same  as  for 
acts  of  "  revelation"  and  the  incarnation  already 
discussed,  and  their  place  in  the  evolution  scheme 
is  the  same.     They  were,  indeed,  all  acts  which  con- 


284  CHRISTOLOGY 

ferred  some  benefit  on  some  one,  or  taught  some 
lesson,  but  the  benefits  and  the  lessons  were  logic- 
ally secondary  considerations. 

The  same  considerations  which  were  pointed  out 
there  apply  here  also.  The  next  step  in  the  evolu- 
tionary process  is  the  development  of  a  race  of  men, 
— or  a  new  species, — living  in  conscious  fellowship 
with  God.  This  advance  step  can  be  taken,  and 
men  can  be  enabled  to  have  that  feeling  and  enter 
into  that  state  only  by  God  doing  acts  of  a  personal 
nature,  such  as  these  so-called  miracles  are.  In- 
stead, therefore,  of  its  being  a  "  break  in  the  uniform- 
ity of  nature  "  for  God  to  do  such  acts,  it  would  be 
a  "  break  in  the  uniformity  of  nature,"  and  a  defect 
in  the  evolution  system,  if  He  did  not  do  them. 

ALL     PERSONAL     INTERCOURSE     MUST     HAVE     AN 
EXTRA-PHYSICAL    ELEMENT 

Now  from  the  standpoint  of  pure  physical  energy 
and  laws,  all  fellowship  or  communication,  even 
among  men,  must  have  what  corresponds  to  a 
miraculous  element.  Indeed  it  is  the  miraculous,  or 
extra-physical  element  in  it,  which  constitutes  it  an 
act  of  fellowship  or  communication.  For  instance,  I 
hear  a  noise  in  the  darkness.  Only  as  I  know  it 
could  not  have  been  produced  by  the  wind  or  some 
other  purely  physical  cause  alone  does  it  have  value 
as  a  voice  speaking  to  me.  Or,  I  see  what  appears 
like  signalling  on  a  distant  hill.  To  be  of  any  value 
not  only  must  those  movements  be  the  result  of  the 
volitions  of  some  mind,  but  they  must  be  of  such 


MIRACLES  285 

a  character  that  I  cannot  doubt  that  they  have  been 
made  by  some  man  and  could  not  have  been  pro- 
duced by  natural  physical  causes  alone.  It  is  only 
the  evidence  of  extra-mechanical  origin  that  gives 
them  value  as  a  communication. 

The  miraculous  therefore  was  not  merely  an  acci- 
dent or  accompaniment  of  God's  self-revelation  in 
Christ  but  it  was  an  essential  and  necessary  feature 
of  it.  From  the  standpoint  of  Jesus'  own  conscious- 
ness it  is  true  that  all  His  miracles  were  merely 
works  of  kindness,  to  help  somebody,  and  that  was 
the  motive  that  prompted  them.  But  yet  it  is 
equally  true  that  in  the  great  divine  purpose  of  God 
they  were  distinctly  designed  to  prove  that  He  was 
divine,  and  that  through  and  in  Him  God  was  offer- 
ing fellowship  with  men.  He  refused,  when  asked 
by  the  Pharisees,  to  show  a  sign  or  miracle  just  to 
exhibit  His  divinity  (Mark  viii.  11,  12)  and  yet,  to 
the  messengers  of  John  the  Baptist  and  others  He 
appealed  to  the  testimony  of  His  miracles  (Matt.  xi. 
4,  5  ;  cf.  John  v.  36  ;  x.  37-38  ;  xx.  30-31,  etc.). 

Yet  the  object  was  not  to  prove  His  divinity  as 
a  dogma,  but  to  enable  them  to  have  the  benefit 
that  would  come  from  consciously  feeling  in  fel- 
lowship with  a  divine  being  and  knowing  that  it 
was  a  divine  being  which  was  showing  such  love 
towards  them  as  they  saw  in  the  fellowship  of  Jesus. 
Since  the  primary  purpose  of  God  appearing  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  was  to  exhibit  an  act  of  fellowship 
towards  men  that  they  would  feel  to  be  such  and  be 
attracted  by,  it  would  have  defeated  the  whole  pur- 


286  CHRISTOLOGY 

pose  if  He  had  not  given  such  evidence  that  they 
could  not  only  know  but  feel  that  it  was  really 
God. 

In  order,  then,  that  the  next  advance  in  evolution 
may  be  made  and  men  have  conscious  fellowship 
with  God,  there  must  be  some  act  that  not  only  is 
but  is  clearly  recognized  by  man  to  be,  not  produced 
by  the  ordinary  course  of  nature  but  a  definite,  inten- 
tional, volitional  act  of  God  intentionally  directed 
towards  the  observer.  It  is  essential  that  it  be  of 
such  a  character  that  it  is  recognized  and  felt  by  the 
observer  to  be  a  personal  volitional  act  of  God 
towards  him.  That  is  the  essential  thing  that  makes 
it  a  contribution  towards  fellowship.  And  that  is 
precisely  the  feature  in  it  that  causes  us  to  class  it  as 
a  miracle. 

Now  of  course  it  is  true  that  there  is  fellowship 
between  friend  and  friend  when  neither  of  them  are 
doing  or  saying  anything,  but  just  enjoying  each 
other's  presence  in  silence.  Some,  perhaps,  would 
say  that  that  is  the  highest  and  most  satisfactory 
kind  of  fellowship.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
there  can  be  that  kind  of  fellowship  only  if  there  has 
been  in  the  past  a  long  course  of  personal  acts  and 
words  between  them,  and  it  is  the  memory,  conscious 
or  unconscious,  of  those  past  volitional  acts  that 
makes  possible  and  is  the  ground  of  the  present 
silent  fellowship.  Just  so  also  in  the  case  of  God. 
It  is  not  necessary  or  fitting  that  He  should  be  always 
doing  towards  us  these  special,  personal  acts  which 
we  call  miracles.     It  is  sufficient  that  we  have  the 


MIRACLES  287 

memory  of  such  acts  performed  in  the  past  and  an 
assured  conviction  that  He  is  near  and  present  with 
us  now.  We  have  the  memory,  passed  down  from 
ancient  times  in  the  sacred  record,  and  by  various 
means  we  come  to  have,  in  what  we  call  faith,  the 
conviction  that  God  is  near  and  present  with  us,  and 
that  is  what  nourishes  in  our  hearts  the  feeling  of 
fellowship  with  Him. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  objected  that,  since  God  is  the 
creator  and  director  of  all  things,  all  things  in  nature 
are  really  His  acts,  and  that  ought  to  be  sufficient. 
But  the  difficulty  is  they  do  not  have  the  evidencing 
quality,  and  do  not  impress  themselves  upon  our 
feelings  as  His  personal  acts  towards  us.  That  is 
an  essential  requisite  to  their  having  value  as 
contributions  to  fellowship.  The  mere  fact  that  a 
person  had  derived  all  his  property  and  even  his 
body  and  life  from  his  parents,  if  he  had  never 
been  conscious  of  any  personal  act  by  those  parents 
towards  himself,  would  not  be  sufficient  to  create 
within  him  a  feeling  of  fellowship  towards  those  par- 
ents. Even  if  it  might  possibly  create  a  feeling  of 
gratitude  or  esteem  it  could  not  create  the  feeling 
of  fellowship.  And  the  more  so  if  those  parents 
were  near,  present,  in  the  house  with  him 
every  day  and  yet  never  took  any  particular, 
personal  notice  of  him,  spoke  any  word  personally 
to  him  or  did  any  other  act  intentionally  directed 
personally  towards  him.  Such  would  be  the  relation 
between  God  and  us  if  we  knew  that  all  the  works  of 
nature  were  His  acts,  but  yet  there  were  no  other  acts 


288  CHRISTOLOGY 

of  a  more  personal  nature  towards  us.  It  would  not 
be  possible,  under  those  circumstances,  for  us  to 
make  any  advance  towards  a  feeling  of  personal 
fellowship  with  Him. 


Ill 

PRAYER 

OBJECTIONS 

CLOSELY  allied  to  the  subject  of  miracles  is 
the  subject  of  prayer.  The  same  persons  who 
make  objections  to  one  make  the  same  ob- 
jections against  the  other.  The  same  principles 
underlie  both.  A  miracle  is  God  communicating 
with  men  mediately  through  physical  energies  and 
appearances,  while  in  prayer  the  communication  is 
direct,  without  any  such  intermediary.  For  of 
course  the  true  typical  form  of  prayer  is  the  silent 
prayer  consisting  only  of  thoughts  or  desires  reach- 
ing out  to  God,  and  words  have  use  only  for  crystal- 
lizing and  making  more  definite  the  thoughts,  or  for 
enabling  many  to  join  in  the  same  petitions  or 
prayers  led  by  one. 

Thus  considered  science  would  declare  the  possi- 
bility of  prayer  a  matter  of  course.  Men  do  have 
such  desires  reaching  out  towards  God,  and  if  God  is 
a  being  with  all  the  faculties  of  man's  spirit,  and  is 
everywhere  present,  there  is  no  reason  why  He  should 
not  perceive  and  understand  them,  and  also  no 
reason  why  He  might  not  convey  His  thoughts  and 
desires  to  men  in  the  same  way,  that  is,  provided  we 
recognize  telepathy  as  really  proved  to  be  an  exist- 
ing fact  and  faculty  of  spirit. 

289 


290  CHRISTOLOGY 

It  is  not  to  prayer  considered  in  this  aspect,  how- 
ever, that  objection  is  usually  made,  but  to  specific 
answers  to  prayer,  especially  answers  involving 
physical  changes  and  results.  Many  persons  would 
concede  a  benefit  in  prayer  consisting  of  a  sort  of 
reflex  influence  upon  the  soul  from  standing  con- 
sciously in  the  presence  of  God,  or  even  concede  that 
God  might  directly  by  His  spirit  exert  some  helpful 
influence  upon  the  soul  in  answer  to  its  prayer,  but 
that  He  should  in  answer  to  prayer  send  rain  or 
wealth  or  cure  of  sickness  or  anything  of  that  phys- 
ical nature  they  entirely  deny  as  unreasonable.  The 
reason  for  the  denial  is  not  that  God  could  not  do  so 
but  that  He  would  not.  The  reason  is  based  upon 
the  supposed  uniformity  of  nature,  and  the  belief 
that  God's  own  established  order  and  government  is 
so  perfect  that  it  does  not  need  to  be  pieced  out  by 
the  advice  and  interference  of  men.  Any  such 
power  of  men's  wills  to  intrude  and  secure  a  change 
from  the  order  that  God  originally  arranged  would 
be  only  an  evil. 

But  this  objection  is  based  upon  an  entirely  wrong 
definition  of  the  place  and  purpose  of  prayer  in  the 
divine  plan.  If  prayer  were  intended  simply  as 
a  means  for  some  certain  favoured  persons  to  get 
something  they  desired,  it  would  be  open  to  that  ob- 
jection. If  the  ultimate  object  and  design  of  prayer 
was  to  arrange  so  that  Christian  people  whom  God 
wished  to  favour  could  have  an  easier  time,  be 
more  prosperous  and  have  more  power  than  other 
people,  so  that  they  could  have  a  means  of  getting 


PRAYER  291 

rid  of  evils  and  troubles,  or  even  so  that  they 
should  have  an  agency  put  into  their  hands  for 
the  uplifting  and  betterment  of  the  world,  it  would 
be  open  to  all  the  objections  stated.  We  can 
hardly  see  how  that  could  be  reconciled  with  an 
all-wise  God  planning  from  the  beginning  the  very 
best  possible  course  of  events.  We  can  hardly 
conceive  that  to  set  aside  the  sequence  of  events 
that  God  has  planned  and  substitute  a  sequence 
that  some  man  has  planned  and  desired  could  be 
anything  else  but  detrimental.  It  would  be  absurd 
and  unthinkable. 

PRAYER  ITSELF  IS  THE  IMPORTANT  END- 
NAMELY,  FELLOWSHIP 

But  that  is  not  the  fundamental  and  ultimate  pur- 
pose of  the  institution  of  prayer  at  all.  The  things 
granted  in  answer  to  prayer  are  not  the  object  of 
the  institution  of  prayer  at  all.  They  are  merely  a 
means  to  a  most  worthy  object.  Indeed  the  whole 
process  of  asking  and  receiving  is  simply  a  means 
to  bring  about  a  high  object.  That  object  is  the 
thing  which  as  we  have  already  seen  constitutes  the 
next  great  step  in  the  evolution  of  man,  namely, 
"  fellowship  with  the  supreme  Spirit,  God."  The 
whole  object  of  the  institution  of  prayer  is  not  to 
enable  men  to  get  things  that  they  want,  but  to  per- 
suade men  into  engaging  in  fellowship  with  God. 
God  never  gives  anything  in  answer  to  prayer  ex- 
cept things  He  thinks  and  always  has  thought  wise 
to  be  given,   and   which   He   would   probably  have 


292  CHRISTOLOGY 

given  anyway  without  prayer  if  the  institution  of 
prayer  had  not  been  estabhshed.  But  if  it  would 
have  been  good  to  give  them  anyway,  much  more  is 
the  result  good  when  there  is  added  the  good  results 
of  the  fellowship  with  God  produced  by  the  asking 
and  receiving.  It  is  simply  the  superior  wisdom  of 
God  producing  two  good  results  instead  of  one. 
The  thing  given  or  done  was  a  wise,  beneficial  thing 
that  with  common  wisdom  would  have  been  included 
in  the  ordinary  succession  of  things  which  were,  as 
we  say,  to  come  about  naturally.  But  in  order  to 
secure  this  higher  benefit  of  divine  fellowship,  God's 
higher  wisdom  made  the  doing  of  that  particular 
thing  contingent  on  men's  asking  Him  for  it,  that  is 
to  say,  engaging  in  an  act  of  fellowship  with  Him. 
While  it  is  true  that  this  may  cause  that  some  good 
things  that  otherwise  would  have  been  done  are  not 
done  because  men  have  failed  to  ask  for  them,  yet 
the  loss  from  that  source  is  far  less  than  the  gain 
from  the  fellowship  with  God  which  is  induced  by 
the  arrangement. 

We  may  find  a  very  homely  but  pertinent  parallel 
illustration  in  men's  treatment  of  animals,  and 
though  the  illustration  may  seem  belittling  yet  we 
must  remember  that  the  difference  in  rank  between 
animals  and  men  is  infinitely  less  than  between  men 
and  God.  About  the  only  way  men  know  to  tame 
and  domesticate  animals,  that  is  to  say,  to  bring  them 
into  a  measure  of  fellowship  with  themselves,  is  pre- 
cisely this  same  method  of  making  some  good  gift 
to  the  animal  contingent  on  its  asking  for  it,  or  com- 


PRAYER  293 

ing  into  some  contact  with  the  man.  When  the 
farmer  talces  a  vessel  of  corn  or  salt  or  other  deli- 
cacy to  the  pasture  with  him  to  induce  his  farm  ani- 
mals to  come  fearlessly  to  him,  it  may  be  true  that 
the  shy  ones  that  don't  come  fail  to  get  something 
that  would  have  been  good  for  them,  and  it  is  cer- 
tainly true  that  those  that  come  by  their  coming  get 
something  they  would  not  have  gotten  if  they  had 
not  come,  but  still  there  was  no  violation  there  of 
the  orderly  laws  of  that  farm's  management.  There 
is  no  putting  of  the  will  of  a  silly  animal  above  the 
will  and  wisdom  of  the  wise  owner.  It  is  not  a 
makeshift  to  patch  up  a  defect  in  the  efficiency  of 
the  system  of  farm  feeding.  Nor  is  it  necessarily  a 
plan  to  enable  certain  favoured  animals  to  live  bet- 
ter than  others  and  better  than  they  could  by  the 
unaided  working  of  the  ordinary  farm  management. 
The  one  object  is  fellowship,  or  in  common  lan- 
guage to  make  those  animals  tame,  friendly  and  not 
afraid  of  him. 

Precisely  such  is  the  nature  of  the  institution 
which  we  call  prayer.  Its  object  is  to  domesticate 
men  to  God's  household,  to  induce  them  to  volunta- 
rily come  to  God  without  fear  and  engage  in  fellow- 
ship with  Him.  That  praying  men  do  get  thereby 
good  things  they  would  not  otherwise  have  gotten 
is  true,  but  that  benefit  is  entirely  a  secondary  and 
subsidiary  thing,  it  is  not  the  main  object ;  it  is 
merely  part  of  the  means  to  attaining  that  object. 
And  the  main  object  is  one  which  as  we  have  seen 
is  an  integral  part  of  the  one  grand,  consistent  prog- 


294  CHRISTOLOGY 

ress  of  evolution,  namely,  the  next  step  upward 
which  men  are  just  now  in  the  process  of  taking. 
And  moreover  it  is  an  object  which,  as  far  as  our 
experience  and  observation  teaches,  is  best  attained 
that  way,  indeed  could  not  be  attained  in  any  other 
way. 

INTERFERENCE  WITH  THE  COURSE  OF  NATURE 
As  to  the  objection  that  the  theory  of  prayer  is  a 
contradiction  to  natural  law  because  it  makes  cer- 
tain events  in  the  natural  world  contingent  on  the 
wishes  and  acts  of  men,  while  the  creator  in  the  be- 
ginning with  infinite  wisdom  arranged  the  complete 
succession  of  natural  events  to  follow  in  definite  and 
necessary  succession,  the  answer  is  that  such  is  not 
the  fact.  Natural  events  do  not  all  follow  a  naturally 
compelled  succession,  but  some  of  them,  indeed  very 
many  of  them,  are  entirely  contingent  upon  the 
wishes  and  acts  of  men.  It  was  an  event  in  the 
natural  world  entirely  contingent  upon  the  wishes 
and  acts  of  men  that  the  soil  on  certain  hills  and 
plains  was  turned  up,  loosened  and  pulverized  and 
certain  kinds  of  seed  scattered  there,  and  that  was 
not  any  contradiction  or  violation  of  natural  law  or 
interference  with  a  wise  scheme  of  natural  events 
determined  from  the  beginning  by  the  creator.  No 
more  would  it  be  if  we  were  to  suppose  the  falling 
of  a  quantity  of  water  on  that  prepared  soil  was  en- 
tirely contingent  upon  the  wishes  and  acts  of  men, 
either  by  the  method  of  irrigation  or  of  rain  from  the 
clouds  in  answer  to  prayer.     It  was  entirely  con- 


PRAYER  295 

tingent  upon  the  wishes  and  acts  of  men  that  a  great 
reef  of  rock  in  New  York  harbour  at  Hellgate  was 
torn  up  and  taken  out  of  the  sea,  and  it  would  be  no 
more  inconsistent  with  all  the  orderly  working  laws 
and  compelled  successions  of  nature  if  in  response 
to  the  wishes  and  acts  of  men  and  in  answer  to 
prayer  a  mountain  should  be  torn  up  and  cast  into 
the  sea. 

Whether  or  not  any  of  that  kind  of  acts  do 
happen  in  answer  to  prayer  is  dependent  entirely 
upon  the  judgment  of  God  as  to  whether  they  are 
necessary  in  order  to  win  men  to  fellowship, — how 
much  coddling  men  need.  And  some  men  require 
a  good  deal  of  coddling  to  induce  them  to  take  any 
interest  in  God,  and  very  great  inducements  to  at- 
tract them  voluntarily  to  come  to  Him.  The  ques- 
tion whether  God  can  and  does  manipulate  natural 
agencies  after  the  prayer  so  as  to  bring  about  events 
in  the  physical  world  which  would  not  have  occurred 
by  the  ordinary  operation  of  natural  energies  as 
previously  constituted, — that  is  to  say,  whether  God 
brings  about  by  special  act  things  that  would  not 
have  happened  naturally  and  spontaneously, — has 
already  been  considered  under  the  topic  of  miracles. 
That  He  could  goes  without  question.  That  He 
would  depends  entirely  upon  whether  there  were 
sufficient  reason  for  doing  so.  When  we  consider 
that  the  one  great  object  of  the  institution  of  prayer 
is  to  establish  a  feeling  of  the  relation  of  fellowship 
with  God  in  the  hearts  of  men,  it  would  seem  as  if, 
to  accomplish  that,  there  must  necessarily  be  some 


296  CHRISTOLOGY 

results  occurring  in  answer  to  prayer  that  would  not 
have  otherwise  naturally  occurred,  and  which  were 
specifically  caused  by  God  at  that  time.  Certainly 
there  must  be  in  the  minds  of  men  the  conviction 
that  such  occur  in  order  that  there  may  be  the  feel- 
ing that  there  is  a  real  answer  and  so  an  act  of  fel- 
lowship. We  can  hardly  conceive  of  God  depend- 
ing upon  a  deception  to  produce  His  most  important 
change  in  the  dispositions  of  men  and  win  their  con- 
fidence towards  Him.  Even  though  we  might  con- 
sider it  admissible  that  many  answers  to  prayer 
were  really  events  prearranged  from  the  beginning 
by  God  through  a  foreknowledge  that  the  prayer 
would  be  made,  yet  the  constitution  of  our  minds  is 
such  that  it  demands  that  some  at  least  should  not 
be  of  that  nature.  In  order  to  make  a  vivid  impres- 
sion of  fellowship  on  our  minds  it  would  be  neces- 
sary that  at  least  some  events  were  not  events  pre- 
arranged in  the  initial  constitution  of  things,  but 
were  brought  about  by  a  special  act  of  God  after  the 
request  was  made.  If  we  were  once  fully  assured  of 
this  it  would  thereby  be  quite  possible  for  us  to  be- 
lieve that  other,  and  perhaps  very  many  times  more 
events  happening  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things 
but  in  such  a  way  as  to  fulfill  our  requests,  were 
really  consciously  prearranged  by  God  from  the  be- 
ginning with  specific  reference  to  fulfilling  those  re- 
quests and  this  would  contribute  to  the  feeling  of 
fellowship. 

There  are  two  limits  within  which  the  number  and 
character  of  such  special  acts  would  seem  to  be  de- 


PRAYER  297 

termined.  They  must  be  sufficiently  numerous  and 
conspicuous  to  keep  vivid  tlie  feeling  of  a  reality  in 
God's  personal  response  to  our  requests,  and  on  the 
other  hand  they  must  not  be  so  numerous  or  of  such 
a  kind  as  to  impair  our  impression  of  the  uniformity 
of  the  laws  and  successions  of  nature.  For  that  is  a 
necessity  to  our  advance  in  knowledge,  which  is  the 
other  great  line  in  which  man's  evolution  is  proceed- 
ing. For  instance  we  might  say, — since  mental  and 
moral  changes  in  men  are  not  usually  the  spon- 
taneous results  of  physical  causation  but  rather  of 
the  activity  of  mind  upon  mind,  for  God  to  produce 
this  kind  of  changes  by  definite  act  after  the  request 
is  made,  would  not  be  so  apt  to  affect  our  conviction 
of  the  uniformity  of  natural  law.  For  this  reason 
we  may  conceive  of  a  greater  proportion  of  acts  of 
that  character  being  done  in  answer  to  prayer  by  a 
special  act  of  God  after  the  prayer  was  made,  still 
not  at  all  to  the  exclusion  of  acts  of  another  char- 
acter. 

Really  the  proper  attitude  of  mind  in  prayer  to 
God  is  to  definitely  and  personally  lift  upward 
towards  God  our  every  desire,  whether  it  be  in  the 
mental,  moral  or  purely  physical  field,  and  do  it 
with  the  conviction  that  our  so  presenting  our  de- 
sires is  a  substantial  part  of  the  totality  of  con- 
tingencies whose  product  in  the  eternal  mind  is  the 
future  results. 


IV 

ATONEMENT 

VARIOUS   VIEWS 

ONE  of  the  most  fundamental  topics  in  Chris- 
tian theology  is  the  doctrine  of  the  "  atone- 
ment." It  is  based  upon  the  interpretation 
of  the  death  of  Christ.  The  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment is  held  in  a  great  many  different  forms,  and 
interpretations  of  the  death  of  Jesus  vary  from,  at  the 
one  extreme,  those  who  have  held  that  His  death  was 
a  price  paid  to  the  devil  to  get  him  to  release  mankind 
from  hell,  to  the  other  extreme  of  those  who  say  that 
Jesus  was  an  amiable  but  mistaken  enthusiast  who 
brought  on  His  death  by  His  impractical  and  revo- 
lutionary theories. 

Somewhere  between  these  extremes  a  line  is  drawn, 
— in  different  places  by  different  persons, — dividing 
those  conceptions  which  constitute  His  death  an 
"atonement"  from  those  which  do  not.  Where 
there  is  so  much  difference  of  opinion  it  would  be 
presumptuous  to  attempt  an  exact  definition,  but  in 
a  very  general  way  we  may  say  that  to  constitute  it 
of  the  nature  of  an  "  atonement "  that  death  must 
have  had  some  peculiar  relation  to  the  lives,  moral 
standing  or  future  destiny  of  men.  In  other  words 
that  death  was  a  necessity  in  order  to  man's  salva- 
tion,— to   man's    highest    welfare.     This    definition 

298 


ATONEMENT  299 

would  undoubtedly  be  considered  entirely  too  weak 
and  inadequate  by  many,  but  it  is  purposely  put  at 
a  minimum, — the  meaning  was  at  least  that  much  or 
more. 

We  may  go  perhaps  a  step  farther  and  say  that  in 
most  of  what  are  called  the  *'  orthodox  theories  "  that 
death  is  considered  necessary  to  render  possible  the 
forgiveness  of  men's  sins,  and  in  many  of  them  there 
is  considered  to  have  been  some  kind  of  a  substitu- 
tion or  community  of  moral  interests  between  men 
and  Christ  in  such  a  sense  that  penalty  due  by  men 
might  be  paid  by  Him,  and  merit  due  to  Him  might 
be  rewarded  by  payment  to  them.  Perhaps  all  these 
theories  are  open  to  the  charge  of  trying  to  define 
too  minutely  with  insufficient  data,  but  in  general 
something  like  the  above  is  the  complexion  of  the 
beliefs  as  to  the  significance  of  the  death  of  Jesus  the 
Christ  which  are  held  by  the  greater  part  of  the 
Christian  Church  to-day. 

The  objections  that  are  urged  against  these  views, 
on  professedly  scientific  or  philosophical  grounds, 
are  quite  numerous  and  varied.  I  may  mention  a 
few.  ist.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  sin  to  be  atoned 
or  forgiven  ;  there  is  only  immaturity.  Man  has  not 
yet  arrived  at  his  ideal  towards  which  he  is  tending. 

2d.  There  is  sin,  and  its  punishment  is  as  in- 
evitable as  all  the  other  laws  of  nature.  Such  a 
thing  as  "  forgiveness  of  sin  "  is  impossible. 

3d.  There  is  no  need  of  anything  to  make  for- 
giveness possible.  God  more  than  willingly  forgives 
any  man's  sins  for  the  mere  asking. 


300  CHRISTOLOGY 

4th.  Every  man  is  a  moral  unit.  He  must  bear 
the  good  and  bad  merit  of  his  acts  himself  alone. 
No  other's  acts  can  have  any  eflect  on  his  receiving 
the  desert  of  his  own  acts. 

Of  course  these  objections  are  quite  mutually  con- 
tradictory, though  perhaps  not  really  so  much  so  as 
on  the  surface  they  seem.  There  is  one  line  of 
thought  running  through  them  all,  and  to  which 
they  are  all  related.  They  take  account  only  of  one 
element  and  ignore  the  judicial  aspect.  Any  real 
evil  results  from  acts  are  confined  to  the  positively 
harmful  effects  of  those  acts,  which  of  course  are 
inevitable.  God's  relation  to  the  whole  matter  is  a 
placid  impersonality,  not  in  the  least  subject  to 
feelings  of  insult  and  anger,  and  with  a  constant 
plan  or  tendency  involving  the  betterment  of  man's 
condition. 

CAN  ONE  MAN  SUFFER  FOR  ANOTHER'S  FAULTS  ? 

The  most  common  and  confidently  urged  objection 
is  that  one  man  may  not  be  punished  for  another's 
sins.  Such  an  act  would  be  unjust  and  itself  a  sin. 
There  can  never  be  forgiveness  granted  to  one  man 
on  the  ground  of  what  some  other  person  has  done, 
for  that  would  be  an  injustice  towards  both  persons. 
It  would  be  unjust  towards  the  sinner,  for  it  fails  to 
give  to  him  the  punishment  that  ought  to  be  given 
to  him.  It  would  be  unjust  towards  the  other  person 
for  it  gives  him  punishment  he  does  not  deserve,  or 
deprives  him  of  reward  he  does  deserve,  giving  it  to 
another  persoa 


ATONEMENT  30I 

However  plausible  this  view  may  seem,  and  how- 
ever admirable  as  a  hypothetical  system  of  morals,  it 
has  no  scientific  foundation.  It  is  a  view  entirely 
based  upon  theory  and  sentimental  considerations, 
while  the  conclusions  indicated  by  an  actual  induc- 
tion from  the  facts  are  all  the  other  way.  One  man 
suffering  for  another's  misdeeds  is  the  common  and 
universal  experience  of  humanity,  also  one  man  re- 
warded through  the  good  deeds  of  another.  This 
applies  not  only  directly  and  physically,  but  also 
indirectly  and  ethically.  A  man's  station  in  life,  his 
esteem  by  others  and  his  esteem  of  himself  is  made 
higher  or  lower  by  the  acts  and  character  of  persons 
intimately  related  to  him,  indeed  his  own  character 
is  made  better  or  worse  largely  through  the  acts  of 
others.  If  there  is  one  truth  that  is  beyond  con- 
troversy through  an  induction  from  the  facts  it  is 
"  the  solidarity  of  the  race."  The  wrong  acts  of  one 
member  of  the  race  pain  or  injure  other  members  or 
all,  just  as  surely  as  the  mal-functioning  of  one  organ 
in  the  body  pains  or  injures  other  organs  or  the 
whole  body.  It  is  a  pure  theory  built  out  of  senti- 
ment which  claims  that  some  time,  some  way,  all 
these  inequalities  will  be  reversed  and  compensated, 
— an  exact  equivalent  of  punishment  given  to  every 
person  who  has  done  wrong  and  a  full  compensation 
of  extra  pleasure  given  to  every  person  who  has 
suffered  through  another's  wrong.  However  beauti- 
ful that  scheme  may  seem,  and  however  much  we 
may  wish  it  might  be  so,  yet  there  is  no  ground  in 
an  induction  from  the  facts  that  science  can  observe 


302  CHRISTOLOGY 

to  give  any  support  to  such  a  theory.  It  is  one  of 
the  things  that  modern  science  most  abhors,  namely, 
first  making  an  a  priori  theory  and  then  seeking  to 
force  the  facts  into  the  mould  of  that  theory.  The 
theory  must  be  built  out  of  the  facts,  and  in  this  case 
the  facts  are  all  the  other  way. 

And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  may  not  deny  the 
legitimacy  of  the  idea  of  "punishment"  entirely. 
That  idea  is  too  deeply  rooted  in  our  natures,  and 
too  universal  to  be  entirely  a  delusion.  The  ideas 
of  "  ought"  and  of  punishment  and  reward  are  most 
intimately  connected  and  mutually  imply  each  other. 
These  ideas  are  the  very  foundation  of  all  morals. 
The  instinctive  demand  of  our  natures  that  certain 
kinds  of  acts  ought  or  ought  not  to  be  done,  and 
that  the  man  who  does  certain  things  ought  to  be 
punished,  is  so  deep  and  essential  a  part  of  our- 
selves that  to  declare  it  false  would  be  to  unsettle 
the  whole  working  mechanism  of  our  social  lives. 

LOVE  CAUSES  A  UNITY  AS  FAR  AS  SUFFERING  IS 
CONCERNED 

There  is  one  consideration  we  will  do  well  to 
notice.  It  is  quite  possible  for  two  persons  to  be  so 
far  identified  that  the  pleasurable  or  painful  acts  ex- 
perienced by  the  one  in  some  degree  also  cause 
pleasure  and  pain  in  the  other.  Indeed  this  is  one 
of  the  most  common  experiences  of  life.  The  basis 
of  such  a  union  and  identification  is  love,  it  is 
"  sympathy "  in  the  etymological  use  of  the  term. 
If  you  love  a  person,  any  suffering  that  you  know 


ATONEMENT  303 

that  person  to  be  enduring  is  also  felt  as  suffering 
by  you,  and  just  in  proportion  to  the  relative  degree 
of  your  love  is  the  relative  intensity  of  your  suffer- 
ing. In  the  same  way  anything  that  you  know 
causes  him  happiness  also  causes  you  happiness. 
Theoretically,  therefore,  if  two  persons  loved  each 
other  perfectly,  and  had  perfect  knowledge  of  each 
other's  experiences,  it  would  be  entirely  immaterial 
to  which  of  the  two  an  act  of  pleasure  or  pain  were 
performed,  for  both  would  feel  it  equally.  Or  if 
only  one  of  the  two  had  the  perfect  knowledge  of 
and  love  for  the  other,  then  at  least  he  would 
feel  equally  with  the  other  all  the  good  or  ill  that 
came  to  that  one,  and  it  would  make  no  difference 
in  that  respect  to  him  whether  the  act  producing 
pleasure  or  pain  was  done  to  that  other  or  to  him, 
he  would  feel  it  equally  and  the  same  in  either  case. 
It  will  be  noticed  that  we  are  approaching  sug- 
gestively near  to  the  status  of  a  "  vicarious  suffer- 
ing" here.  At  least  it  is  evident  that  there  could  be 
no  charge  of  injustice  to  the  loving  one  if  a  suffering 
that  might  rightly  have  been  inflicted  on  the  one  he 
loved  was  inflicted  on  him,  for  he  would  have  felt 
the  suffering  equally  in  either  case.  And  perhaps 
we  might  add  that  the  advantage  would  be  in  favour 
of  inflicting  it  on  him,  for  in  that  case  the  suffering 
would  be  no  greater  to  him  than  if  it  had  been  in- 
flicted on  the  other  and  there  would  be  with  it  a 
great  joy  that  he  was  saving  a  loved  one  from  that 
much  suffering.  This  fact  of  love  is  a  new  factor 
which  entirely  changes  the  nature  of  the  problem. 


304  CHRISTOLOGY 

It  is  the  happy  solution  of  it  all.  For  if  the  suffer- 
ing is  inflicted  not  on  the  one  to  whom  it  is  natu- 
rally due  but  on  the  one  who  perfectly  loves  him  then 
not  only  is  that  first  one  relieved  of  all  suffering,  but 
the  one  who  loves  him,  while  he  receives  an  amount 
of  suffering  receives  an  exactly  equal  and  compen- 
sating amount  of  pleasure  in  the  fact  of  having 
saved  a  loved  one  from  that  much  suffering.  Thus, 
theoretically  at  least,  we  can  conceive  of  the  whole 
problem  of  salvation  from  punishment  being  in  this 
way  fully  solved. 

GENESIS  OF  THE  INSTINCT  OF  GUILT  AND 
PUNISHMENT 

There  is  also  a  possibility  of  error  coming  into  our 
conclusions  on  this  subject  through  wrong  concep- 
tions as  to  the  nature  of  right,  duty,  reward  and 
punishment.  We  are  perhaps  inclined  to  consider 
these  primary  and  fundamental  facts.  They  are  un- 
doubtedly so  in  the  sense  of  being  of  primary  im- 
portance and  fundamental  in  any  scheme  of  success- 
ful life.  But  in  their  genesis  they  are  not  primary 
and  fundamental.  They  are  composite,  artificial, 
manufactured  products.  They  are  instinctive  feel- 
ings or  judgments,  it  is  true,  but  all  instincts  are 
manufactured  products  of  very  complex  origin. 
We  must  know  the  composition  or  origins  of  things 
in  order  to  determine  perfectly  their  nature  and  pos- 
sibilities. We  would  naturally  be  inclined  to  con- 
sider sugar  and  vinegar  the  complete  opposites  of 
each  other,  yet  more  complete  knowledge  tells  us 


ATONEMENT  305 

that  they  are  composed  of  precisely  the  same  ele- 
ments in  different  proportion,  and  one  can  be  readily 
changed  into  the  other.  So  we  will  be  liable  to  err 
in  our  judgment  of  their  relations  and  interactions  if 
we  consider  sin,  punishment,  forgiveness  and  the 
like  as  primary  elements.  The  motions  of  the 
hands  on  the  face  of  the  watch  are  all  that  the  ordi- 
nary man  ordinarily  looks  at,  and  it  is  because  their 
movements  are  so  simple  and  obvious  that  they  are 
adapted  to  be  an  instantaneous  guide  to  him  at  any 
time.  But  the  watchmaker  or  watchmender  must 
know  accurately  all  the  complicated  interactions  of 
the  internal  works  that  produce  those  simple,  ex- 
ternal movements.  Just  so,  that  they  may  be  an 
instantaneous  guide  to  us  in  every  contingency, 
these  moral  judgments  are  made  instinctive  and 
very  simple,  but  he  who  would  make  metaphysical 
arguments  and  theories  about  their  possibilities 
must  first  know  accurately  the  complex  sources  from 
which  they  are  produced. 

The  ideas  of  "  right,"  of  "  ought "  and  of  punish- 
ment, while  not  identical,  are  mutually  related  and 
imply  each  other.  It  would  not  be  in  place  here  to 
attempt  any  thorough  discussion  of  the  question, 
but  we  may  indicate  very  briefly  what  seems  to  be 
the  path  and  method  of  their  genesis.  They  all  grow 
naturally  and  necessarily  out  of  the  fact  of  self-cen- 
tred desire,  that  is,  making  the  interests  and  ad- 
vancement of  self  the  dominant  motive  of  life.  Such 
desire  seems  to  be  part  of  the  very  elementary 
essence  of  personality  or  "  self."     It  is  chiefly  as  "  a 


306  CHRISTOLOGY 

permanency  of  desire  "  that  self  has  consciousness  of 
itself  as  self.  There  is  an  intake  adjunct,  namely, 
consciousness  and  its  group  of  faculties,  and  an  out- 
go adjunct,  namely,  will  and  the  faculties  of  activity, 
but  the  most  central  fact,  to  which  the  other  two 
stand  in  the  rank  of  adjuncts,  is  this  fact  of  desire,  or 
a  desiring  entity. 

Closely  allied  to  desire,  and  springing  out  of  it,  is 
the  feeling  of  possession.  This  naturally  develops 
into  a  feeling  of  ownership  in  things  I  have,  and  by 
developing  a  little  further  becomes  a  general  feeling 
of  rights  I  possess  as  to  a  number  of  things.  But 
man's  mind  has  a  tendency  to  generalize.  I  have 
this  feeling  of  "  my  rights  "  and  that  certain  acts  will 
violate  my  rights  and  certain  other  acts  be  in 
harmony  with  them,  and  as  I  see  other  people  con- 
stituted the  same  as  I  am  and  with  the  same  feelings 
in  this  respect,  I  begin  to  generalize  and  perceive 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  in  general  as  "rights" 
felt  by  men  in  general.  This  carries  with  it  the 
idea  of  certain  acts  violating  some  one's  rights  and 
other  acts  being  in  harmony  with  them.  This  of 
course  crystallizes  into  the  more  general  idea  that 
certain  classes  of  acts  violate  rights  and  others  are  in 
harmony  with  them.  This  is  already  a  rudimentary 
form  of  at  least  part  of  what  we  speak  of  as  the  idea 
of  right  and  wrong. 

As  government  arises  and  machinery  for  enforcing 
the  rights  of  all  more  and  more  equably  and  impar- 
tially, this  idea  of  right  and  wrong  develops  in  con- 
tent and  character   somewhat.     Especially  with  the 


ATONEMENT  307 

idea  of  a  supreme  ruler,  who  both  has  rights  himself 
and  desires  that  the  rights  of  all  men  be  enforced 
impartially,  the  idea  of  right  and  wrong  expands  to 
its  widest  and  most  perfect  form,  as  all  embracing 
and  perfectly  discriminating,  perfect  justice  to  every 
creature,  and  perfect  harmony  with  that  ideal  of 
perfectness  which  is  God's  purpose  and  objective 
endeavour.  This,  it  will  be  noticed,  is  not  the  idea  of 
"  ought "  but  simply  the  idea  of  "  right,"  and  it  will 
be  seen  that  it  is  based  on  and  grows  out  of  that 
fundamental  fact  of  desire,  which  is  the  elementary 
essence  of  personality. 

In  a  somewhat  similar  way  the  idea  of  punish- 
ment grows  out  of  this  same  fact  of  desire.  There 
spontaneously  arises  a  feeling  of  displeasure  when 
desire  is  thwarted  or  interfered  with,  or  an  undesired 
experience  is  forced  upon  the  individual.  This 
develops  into  the  impulse  to  inflict  an  equivalent 
undesirable  experience  or  pain  upon  the  individual 
that  injured  me. 

Again  the  tendency  of  man's  mind  to  generalize 
comes  into  play,  and  we  feel  not  only  that  there  is  an 
impulse  to  injure  the  one  that  injures  me,  but  as  all 
other  individuals  are  seen  to  have  the  feeling  also, 
the  fact  of  a  general  impulse  to  inflict  injury  in  re- 
turn for  an  injury  received  is  accepted  as  a  natural 
and  appropriate  state.  As  sketched  in  a  previous 
paragraph,  this  would  develop  into  the  feeling  that  it 
was  a  right  and  therefore  that  it  was  right.  With 
the  emergence  of  competent  government,  however, 
especially  with  the  belief  in  a  supreme  ruler,  there 


308  CHRISTOLOGY 

comes  more  and  more  the  feeling  that  the  inflicting 
of  that  suffering  upon  the  wrong-doer  is  not  only  an 
impulse  of  the  injured  individual  but  is  right  and 
is  a  proper  function  of  the  government,  and  of  the 
supreme  ruler,  God. 

Here  we  must  notice  a  peculiar  result  of  man's 
tendency  to  generalize.  He  not  only  forms  general 
and  abstract  conceptions,  but  he  tends  to  view  him- 
self objectively, — to  stand  himself  up  in  line  with 
all  other  men  and  to  view  them  all,  himself  in- 
cluded, impartially  and  alike.  Here  is  the  answer 
to  that  perplexing  question  why  men  should  have 
that  impulse  which  demands  that  suffering  be  in- 
flicted upon  themselves  for  the  evil  they  have  done. 
It  seems  natural  that  they  should  have  an  impulse 
for  the  inflicting  of  suffering  on  other  persons  for 
wrongs  done,  whether  the  wrongs  were  done  to  them- 
selves or  not.  Here  we  can  see  that  this  tendency  to 
look  at  themselves  objectively  must  make  them  pass 
the  same  judgment,  and  have  the  same  impulse 
towards  themselves  as  towards  any  other.  We  call 
that  impulse  "  conscience."  When  it  comes  to 
carrying  out  that  impulse  and  inflicting  the  suffering, 
of  course  their  self-centred  desire  to  have  pleasure 
and  avoid  pain  will  come  in  to  fight  against  that 
impulse  and  prevent  the  infliction,  but  the  impulse  is 
there  all  the  same.  That  is  the  only  point  of  signifi- 
cance here. 

It  will  be  evident,  I  think,  that  the  union  of  this 
emotional  impulse  for  punishment  to  all  wrong- 
doers, including  self,  with  that  other  ideal  conception 


ATONEMENT  309 

of  the  Tightness  and  wrongness  of  acts,  produces 
precisely  the  state  of  mind  which  we  commonly 
denominate  by  "  ought "  or  the  "  categorical  im- 
perative." We  have,  therefore,  all  these  ideas  of 
right,  ought,  punishment,  etc.,  as  natural  fruit  and 
results  growing  necessarily  out  of  self-seeking  desire 
being  the  central,  dominant  characteristic  of  our 
nature. 

Is  this  idea  of  the  natural  genesis  of  conscience 
antagonistic  to  the  common  claim  that  conscience 
is  the  voice  of  God  speaking  in  our  souls  ?  Not  at 
all.  Indeed,  on  our  theory  of  evolution,  it  distinctly 
confirms  that  claim.  All  the  existing  process  of 
evolution  is  specifically  the  will  of  God.  It  is  just 
God  progressively  working.  All  those  tendencies, 
therefore,  that  lead  in  the  direction  in  which  the 
evolution  is  tending  are  definitely  designed  and 
instigated  by  God.  The  very  fact  therefore  that 
this  great  creative  evolutionary  process  has  stamped 
this  instinct  into  our  natures  as  a  guiding,  compelling 
force  constitutes  it  His  instrument  for  leading  us  to 
do  the  things  that  He  wants  us  to  do.  It  is  there- 
fore in  the  truest  sense  His  will  and  voice  speaking 
within  us.  We  must  get  rid  of  the  crude  "  Carpenter 
theory  "  idea  that  if  a  thing  is  naturally  produced  it 
is  not  God's  work. 

Does  it,  again,  divorce  morality  from  the  authority 
and  command  of  God  ?  Not  at  all.  Even  though 
all  these  moral  distinctions  and  impulses  arose  natu- 
rally in  the  process  of  evolution  they  are  none  the 
less  the  commands  of  God.     For  the  whole  process 


310  CHRISTOLOGY 

of  evolution  is  the  will  of  God,  and  whatever  im- 
pels in  the  direction  in  which  that  process  is  tend- 
ing is  the  command  of  God  in  the  most  real  sense. 

MEANING  AND  GROUNDS  OF  "  FORGIVE- 
NESS OF  SIN  " 

We  have  therefore  the  three  categories  of  ethics, 
— right,  ought  and  punishment, — all  natural  products 
of  the  legitimate  working  of  that  self-centred  desir- 
ing which  is  the  natural,  elementary  essence  of  per- 
sonality or  self.  They  are  the  natural,  legitimate 
product  of  that  desire  reacting  and  acting  in  the 
environment  of  other  selves.  They  are  not  an  ex- 
trinsic something  tacked  on  to  man  at  a  certain  stage 
to  secure  a  desired  result,  as  a  shipping  tag  is  pasted 
on  to  a  parcel  to  insure  its  going  to  its  destination. 
They  are  a  natural  development  of  what  was  in  man's 
own  constitution,  namely,  that  self-centred  desiring 
that  is  a  main  element  of  his  personality. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  this  instinct  in  its  highest 
form,  the  ideas  of  right  and  ought  and  the  impulse 
for  punishment  to  one's  own  self  for  wrong-doing, 
cannot  emerge  till  creatures  have  reached  a  very 
high  stage  in  the  evolution,  that  is  till  they  have  ac- 
quired reason  and  very  considerably  advanced 
powers  of  generalization.  Moreover,  if  at  any  time 
this  self-centred  desiring  should  cease  to  exist,  or  to 
have  the  dominant  place  in  man's  being,  all  this 
instinct  and  feeling,  especially  the  impulse  for  pun- 
ishment, must  die  out  and  cease,  since  it  is  built  upon 
and  grows  out  of  that  self-centred  desiring.     The 


ATONEMENT  3H 

idea  of  right,  and  a  modified  form  of  the  idea  of 
"  ought,"  might  remain  as  a  useful  guide,  finding 
roots  and  motive  in  that  which  had  now  become  the 
dominant  factor  of  his  being,  but  the  impulse  for 
punishment,  having  nothing  to  sustain  it,  must  wither 
and  die.  There  would  thus  be  set  off  a  certain 
limited  period  only,  in  the  long  process  of  evolution, 
during  which  the  impulse  for  punishment  in  its  pres- 
ent form  could  exist,  and,  indeed,  as  we  shall  see  later, 
during  which  alone  it  would  be  useful  to  the  process 
of  evolution. 

What  then  is  the  meaning  of  forgiveness?  We 
use  the  term  commonly  in  a  merely  conventional 
sense  to  indicate  a  certain  word  spoken  or  a  relation 
of  complaisance  restored,  but  is  there  not  some  real 
fact  corresponding  to  the  term  as  substantial  and 
well  grounded  as  the  facts  of  duty  or  sin  ?  I  suppose 
we  would  say  that  it  is  a  state  just  the  opposite  of 
that  in  which  a  man  is  when  he  has  done  an  act  of 
the  kind  which  we  denominate  bad,  or  wrong.  It  is 
the  removal  of  that  which  that  act  brought  upon 
him.  This  definition,  however,  would  include  too 
much.  There  are  physical  and  other  results  of  the 
bad  act  which  are  not  removed  by  it.  Leaving  out 
all  these  effects  that  are  genetically  produced  by  the 
bad  act  there  is  in  addition  a  recognized  state  in 
which  the  man  stands,  which  calls  for  evil  or  sufiFer- 
ing  to  be  experienced  by  him.  Punishment  ought  to 
be  inflicted  on  him.  Forgiveness  means  that  he  no 
longer  stands  in  that  state.  It  is  no  longer  true  that 
punishment  ought  to  be  inflicted  upon  him. 


312  CHRISTOLOGY 

Now  how  can  this  change  of  state  be  brought  about  ? 
In  the  first  place  we  may  say  that  it  is  not  brought 
about  by  God  changing  His  mind.  All  conceptions 
based  upon  the  idea  that  God  is  angry,  provoked  or 
His  dignity  insulted  and  that  is  the  reason  that  He 
imposes  a  penalty,  which  as  an  act  of  forbearance 
He  consents  to  forego  thus  giving  forgiveness,  we 
may  set  aside  as  not  calling  for  special  consideration. 
The  state  in  which  man  stands  is  a  fact  growing 
necessarily  out  of  the  existing  condition  of  things, 
and  he  can  cease  to  stand  in  that  state  only  by  the 
facts  in  the  case  being  changed,  that  is  to  say,  the 
condition  of  things  being  changed. 

Let  us  suppose  there  is  a  race  of  beings  in  which 
the  dominant  element  of  their  nature  instead  of  be- 
ing self-centred  desire  is  love, — ^in  whom  all  that  part 
of  the  mental  mechanism  which  with  common  men 
consists  of  desire  for  their  own  welfare  and  happiness 
is  replaced  by  desire  for  the  welfare  and  happiness 
of  others.  It  is  plain  that  among  such  a  race  of 
beings  the  instinct  for  punishment  could  not  develop. 
There  would  be  nothing  in  the  make-up  of  their 
natures  to  give  rise  to  such  a  desire  or  instinct.  In 
like  manner,  should  the  human  race  evolve  or  change 
to  such  a  condition  the  instinct  of  punishment  must 
atrophy  and  die  out,  as  all  organs  do  that  cease  to 
have  any  use. 

It  is  evident,  too,  that  in  such  a  race  the  inflicting 
of  punishment  would  serve  no  useful  end  and  con- 
tribute nothing,  for  the  desire  for  the  protection,  wel- 
fare and  happiness  of  all  others  is  already  the  domi- 


ATONEMENT  3 13 

nant  element  in  every  one's  desires,  so  any  other 
expedient  would  be  unnecessary.  Moreover  the 
inflicting  of  punishment  on  one  who  had  done  an 
injury  would  bring  only  suffering  not  only  to  him 
but  to  all  the  rest  also. 

By  all  the  canons  of  evolution,  therefore,  the 
instinct  of  punishment  could  not  exist  in  such  a  race 
any  more  than  gills  could  persist  in  a  race  of  creatures 
that  had  left  the  water  and  lived  constantly  in  the  air. 

We  have  already  noted  that  whatever  evolution 
produces  is  the  "  will  of  God,"  for  evolution  is  simply 
God's  method  of  working  out  His  purposes.  So  to 
say  that  evolution  no  longer  produced  the  instinct 
of  punishment  would  be  equivalent  to  saying  that  it 
was  not  the  will  of  God.  Moreover  since  God  is 
perfect  love.  His  own  nature  would  furnish  no  de- 
mand for  it  when  it  ceased  to  be  a  beneficial  factor. 

For  the  race  to  advance  to  that  plane  of  life  must 
therefore  be  the  complete  abolition  of  the  whole 
institution  of  punishment  for  all  the  race.  In  the 
same  way  if  some  part  of  the  race  attained  that 
plane,  provided  they  were  completely  segregated  and 
isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  race,  punishment  would 
be  obsolete  for  that  part  of  the  race. 

A  NEW  BIOLOGICAL  SPECIES 

Now  precisely  that  is  what  is  contemplated  in  the 
Biblical  teaching  as  to  salvation  and  forgiveness. 
There  is  everywhere  claimed  to  be  a  radical  line  of 
demarkation,  a  racial  difference, — between  those 
persons    whose   sins   are   forgiven,  to   whom   some 


314  CHRISTOLOGY 

such  name  as  "  children  of  God  "  is  given,  and  the 
rest  of  the  race,  which  is  commonly  spoken  of  as 
"  the  world."  Evolutionally  speaking  they  are 
treated  as  a  separate  biological  species.  They  are 
considered  to  be  distinct  even  in  this  life,  and  it  is 
declared  that  in  the  future  life  they  shall  be  in  entirely 
distinct  worlds,  impassibly  separated  from  each  other. 
And  one  of  the  chief  features  that  differentiate  them 
is  precisely  this  fact  of  love  as  the  dominant  factor 
of  their  natures.     (See  i  John  iii.  14,  iv.  7,  etc.) 

Such  a  radical  change  in  their  nature  as  we  have 
outlined,  the  most  fundamental  and  all-controlling 
impulse  of  self-seeking  being  replaced  by  an  equal 
impulse  for  seeking  the  advancement  of  others, 
would  surely  constitute  as  great  a  difference  as 
ordinarily  separates  between  one  biological  species 
and  another.  True  now  they  are  very  imperfectly 
up  to  that  plane  of  having  love  the  dominating 
motive  in  their  character,  yet  the  change  has  already 
taken  place  that  initiates  them  into  the  new  depar- 
ture, and  the  process  will  progressively  go  on  till  at 
some  time  in  the  future  it  will  be  perfect.  God  looks 
at  every  subject  from  the  standpoint  of  His  completed 
purpose,  and  looking  at  this  part  of  the  race  from 
the  standpoint  of  what  they  are  to  be  at  that  time,  there 
could  be  no  utility  in  punishment  and  no  impulse 
for  it.  And  so  God  considers  all  those  who,  though 
still  imperfect,  are  within  that  new  species,  as  no 
longer  under  the  regime  of  punishment.  Translated 
into  common  language  that  is  the  same  as  what  we 
call  "forgiveness  of  sins." 


ATONEMENT  315 

I  am  aware  that  it  is  quite  common  to  consider 
punishment  in  a  different  light,— in  a  sort  of  com- 
mercial way,  as  a  debt  that,  by  some  mysterious 
higher  law  which  even  God  cannot  alter,  must  cer- 
tainly be  paid  if  ever  once  incurred.  But  since  we 
are  considering  these  problems  specifically  from  the 
view-point  of  science,  evolution,  at  least,  can  find 
no  data  for  such  a  view,  and  if  the  account  given 
above  of  the  genesis  of  the  instinct  be  true,  punish- 
ment can  have  no  place  in  the  ethics  of  a  race  in 
which  love  is  the  dominant  impulse  of  the  character. 
Philosophy  may  solve  the  problems  of  its  own  pro- 
ducing, but  as  far  as  evolutionary  science  is  con- 
cerned, it  can  clearly  recognize  and  justify  the 
necessity  and  divine  sanction  of  punishment  for  all 
common  men,  and  also  its  entire  abrogation  for  all 
the  individuals  who  have  come  into  this  new  species, 
this  new  race  of  "children  of  God." 

We  must  notice,  however,  that  they  must  be 
changed  in  order  for  this  to  apply  to  them.  They 
must  become  members  of  this  new  species.  A 
change  must  take  place  at  the  very  springs  of  their 
being,  initiating  a  new  disposition  that  shall  grow 
and  develop  until  eventually  love  must  become  the 
dominating  impulse  of  their  character,  taking  en- 
tirely the  place  of  selfish  desire.  In  other  words,  in 
Bible  language,  "  They  must  be  born  again."  It  is 
represented  that  this  takes  place,  under  God's  spirit, 
chiefly  as  an  effect  of  the  infinite  love  of  God,  which 
was  exhibited  in  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ. 

We  may  add  a  few  words  on  the  subject  of  the 


3l6  CHRISTOLOGY 

need  of  punishment  and  its  contribution  to  evolu- 
tional advance.  In  a  race  where  a  desire  for  self  is 
the  supreme  and  dominant  motive,  punishment,  or 
suffering  following  the  interference  with  the  desires 
of  others,  is  about  the  only  agency  that  can  bring 
about  that  degree  of  fair  play  and  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity between  all  the  members  that  will  allow  the 
higher  faculties  to  evolve,  that  is  to  say  other  fac- 
ulties aside  from  those  that  contribute  to  making  the 
individual  an  efficient  fighting  agent.  In  the  lower 
reaches  of  evolution  when  the  chief  desideratum  was 
physical  development  we  may  conceive  that  it  would 
not  serve  a  useful  purpose  for  suffering  to  be  in- 
flicted for  an  act  of  injury  to  another,  but  rather  the 
reverse.  But  when  beings  have  evolved  of  such  a 
grade  that  the  most  important  line  of  development 
is  the  development  of  the  contemplative,  reflective, 
aesthetic  and  other  faculties  that  do  not  contribute 
much  to  the  fighting  power  of  the  individual,  then 
there  comes  to  be  great  value  in  this  instinct  of 
punishment, — the  conviction  that  an  act  of  injury  to 
another  ought  to  be  followed  by  suffering  inflicted 
on  the  wrong-doer.  When,  however,  beings  have 
advanced  still  farther,  to  the  stage  where  love  and 
desire  for  the  happiness  of  others,  instead  of  desire 
for  self,  becomes  the  dominant  element  in  their 
character,  then  the  instinct  of  punishment  becomes 
no  longer  useful,  for  this  element  of  love  will  be  a 
perfectly  competent  agency  in  securing  the  highest 
possible  opportunities  for  all.  It  will  be  just  as 
potent  and  fit  an  agency  in  securing  the  advance  of 


ATONEMENT  317 

all  the  "  not-self "  as  desire  was  in  securing  the  ad- 
vance of  self. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  instinct  of  punishment  is 
only  useful  in  a  short  section  of  the  evolutionary- 
process,  namely,  between  the  point  where  the  dis- 
tinctly human  emerges  and  the  point  where  the 
being  has  risen  to  that  higher  condition  where  love 
is  the  dominant  motive.  But  in  that  short  section  it 
is  extremely  useful  and  essential.  For  all  individuals 
who  remain  in  that  section  and  do  not  advance  be- 
yond it  it  is  still  valid.  But  for  those  who  have 
advanced  to  that  next  stage  it  is  not  in  force.  It 
will  be  noticed  that  this  agrees  exactly  to  a  Bible 
statement  made  to  persons  who  are  counted  as  hav- 
ing advanced  to  that  stage  :  "  Ye  are  not  under  the 
law  but  under  grace  "  (Rom.  vi.  14). 


V 

MEANING  OF  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

WHAT  then  is  the  relation  of  the  death  of 
Christ  to  all  this  question  ?  In  the  Bible 
teaching  a  peculiar  importance  seems  to 
be  given  to  the  death.  It  is  compared  to  those 
religious  acts  in  the  Old  Testament  services,  where 
a  lamb  or  other  animal  being  slaughtered  and  burnt 
upon  the  altar  the  priests  declared  forgiveness  of  sin 
to  the  offerer.  The  death  of  Christ  is  declared  to  be 
the  great  reality,  of  which  those  sacrifices  of  animals 
in  Old  Testament  times  were  only  imitations  or 
suggestive  pictures. 

While  in  many  ways  this  idea  seems  to  be  very 
appropriate  and  suggestive,  yet  followed  too  far  in 
certain  directions  it  seems  to  lead  to  very  unten- 
able conclusions.  If  we  consider  that  the  Jews  and 
Pilate  putting  Christ  to  death  was  like  the  priest 
putting  the  lamb  to  death,  that  becomes  a  great  re- 
ligious act.  Though  the  greatest  crime  of  history  it 
was  the  greatest  and  holiest  act  of  all  history  and 
the  one  that  brought  the  greatest  blessings  to  the 
world.  It  seems  utterly  contrary  to  all  our  ideas  of 
morality  that  the  greatest  of  crimes  should  bring  the 
greatest  benefit  to  men,  and  that  that  great  benefit 

318 


MEANING   OF   THE   DEATH   OF   CHRIST        319 

could  not  be  brought  without  the  committing  of  that 
great  crime. 

DEATH  NOT  CAUSED  BY  THE  WOUNDS  OF  THE  CROSS 

We  must  first  examine  still  further  what  were  the 
exact  historical  facts  and  the  nature  of  that  death  as 
indicated  in  the  Bible  record.  He  died  upon  a  cross 
put  there  by  the  Roman  soldiers  at  the  instigation 
of  the  Jews.  That  much  is  without  question.  But 
it  has  often  been  remarked  that  while  He  died  upon 
the  cross  yet  the  wounds  and  pain  of  the  cross  were 
not  what  killed  Him.  As  far  as  the  act  of  the  Jews 
was  concerned  it  was  an  act  of  murder,  for  it  was 
intended  to  take  His  life  and  it  would  certainly  have 
taken  His  life  in  the  end,  but  in  reality  it  seems  that 
before  that  act  had  time  to  bring  about  His  death  it 
was  brought  about  by  another  cause. 

The  time  that  He  hung  upon  the  cross  was  not 
sufficient  to  cause  death  ordinarily.  It  was  but  six 
hours  and  ordinarily  one  or  two  days  at  least  would 
intervene  before  death.  Ordinarily  death  would 
come  with  utter  exhaustion,  but  He  cried  out  with  a 
loud  voice  at  the  time  of  His  death.  It  has  been 
claimed  by  some  scientists  that  the  apparent  mix- 
ture of  water  and  blood  that  came  from  the  spear 
wound  in  His  side  after  His  death  indicated  some 
lesion  or  internal  disorder  that  might  have  resulted 
from  extremely  intense  suffering  and  emotion. 
Moreover  only  a  few  hours  before,  in  the  garden  of 
Gethsemane,  He  had  experienced  an  extremely  in- 
tense emotional  suffering  that  cannot  possibly  be  at- 


320  CHRISTOLOGY 

tributed  to  mere  fear  of  the  physical  pain  of  death, 
in  view  of  all  His  previous  and  subsequent  attitude 
towards  that  death.  It  would  seem  as  though  it 
might  have  been  the  same  agency  that  caused  this 
extreme  suffering  that  caused  His  death  and  also  the 
peculiar  physical  conditions  that  were  found  after 
His  death.  It  would  seem  also  to  have  been  of  an 
emotional  rather  than  of  a  physical  nature. 

Acting  upon  this  suggestion  the  older  theologians 
were  accustomed  to  say  that  what  caused  the  suffer- 
ing and  the  death  was  "the  wrath  of  God"  poured 
upon  Him,  or  some  mystical,  mysterious  act  of  laying 
the  sins  of  men  upon  Him.  From  what  we  know 
both  of  the  nature  of  God  and  of  the  nature  of  sin 
we  cannot  conceive  of  such  things  being  done  in  a 
literal  sense.  At  best  it  can  be  no  more  than  a 
figurative  use  of  terms.  Is  there  not  something 
more  concrete  and  real  to  be  found,  which  science 
could  recognize  as  a  natural  and  probable  cause  of 
all  these  effects  ? 

REAL  CAUSE  WAS  SUFFERING  OF  LOVE  FOR 
SINFUL  MEN 

There  is  such  an  agency,  which  in  its  natural  and 
inevitable  working  must  in  those  particular  circum- 
stances have  produced  precisely  such  results  as  are 
there  recorded.  That  agency  is  love^  the  perfect 
love  of  God.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  a  person 
loving  all  men,  and  each  and  every  individual  man, 
with  a  perfect  and  absorbing  love,  coming  to  realize 
the  extreme  depravity  and  ruin  of  these  persons  that 


MEANING  OF  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST   32 1 

He  so  intensely  loved  would  experience  an  intensity 
of  suffering  that  might  produce  extreme  physical 
disorder  and  finally  death. 

Now  all  these  conditions,  so  far  as  we  can  judge, 
were  actually  present  here.  Jesus  did  have  a  su- 
preme and  absorbing  love  for  men,  and  for  each  in- 
dividual man.  If  He  was,  in  His  elemental  essence, 
a  manifestation  of  God,  and  God  is  love,  He  also 
must  have  had  perfect  love  as  God  has.  Every- 
thing in  His  history  goes  to  bear  out  that  supposi- 
tion that  the  supreme  element  in  His  nature  was  an 
absorbing  love  for  men.  On  the  hypothesis  which 
we  have  here  been  following,  though  divine  in  His 
ultimate  essence,  yet  both  in  His  consciousness  and 
His  powers  He  was  limited  to  the  measure  of  hu- 
manity. From  the  first,  with  such  a  love,  the  de- 
pravity and  corruption  of  the  people  with  whom  He 
came  in  contact,  and  whom  He  loved  thus,  must 
have  weighed  upon  Him  like  a  load  of  pain.  But 
His  acquaintance  and  consciousness  were  limited, 
and  He  was  moreover  buoyed  up  by  the  hopes  and 
by  the  very  exertions  of  His  great  attempt  to  win, 
reform  and  uplift  them.  For  we  must  remember 
that  all  His  life  was  just  as  real  to  Him  as  our  lives 
are  to  us.  There  was  no  mere  stage-play  about  it, 
or  merely  going  through  a  prescribed  program,  for 
He  was  in  every  essential  respect  in  His  experiences, 
sensations  and  consciousness  the  same  as  any  one 
of  us,  only  with  this  feeling  of  supreme,  absorbing 
love  towards  every  one  He  associated  with. 

But  in  the  end  that  weight  of  pain  became  too 


322  CHRISTOLOGY 

great  for  the  measure  of  human  strength  to  bear. 
Just  what  it  was  that  precipitated  the  final  catas- 
trophe we  perhaps  may  not  fully  explain  in  all  its 
details,  but  we  can  see  enough  of  the  inevitable 
working  of  such  a  love  and  its  consequent  suffering 
to  conceive  how  in  its  natural  working  it  might  have 
produced  that  death  just  as  it  is  recorded  to  have 
occurred.  It  is  characteristic  of  emotional  feeling  to 
come  not  by  steady,  gradual  increase  but  in  waves 
of  intense  feeling,  both  preceded  and  followed  by 
calmer  periods.  There  seem  to  be  hints  of  such 
emotional  waves  at  various  points  throughout  the 
history,  as  for  instance  when  He  had  to  spend  whole 
nights  on  the  mountains  alone  in  prayer,  when  He 
was  specially  said  to  be  moved  with  compassion  for 
the  people  and  earnest  in  healing  them,  at  the  resur- 
rection of  Lazarus  (John  xi.  35,  38),  on  the  last  jour- 
ney to  Jerusalem  (Mark  x.  32),  etc.  As  the  end  drew 
nearer  and  He  realized  more  and  more  definitely 
that  all  His  efforts  to  reform  these  people  whom  He 
loved  were  failing  and  they  were  becoming  worse 
than  before,  the  load  of  pain  became  too  heavy  to  be 
borne. 

The  last  hours  before  the  end  came  were  such  a 
saturnalia  of  hate  and  utter  wickedness  as  the  world 
has  seldom  seen.  Remember  that  He  loved  every 
man  in  that  vast  mob  that  was  howling  for  His  life 
with  a  perfect  love, — had  the  same  feelings  towards 
each  one  of  them  that  a  father  has  towards  his 
favourite  but  wayward  son.  When  at  last  He  hung 
Utterly  helpless  on  the  cross  and  saw  all  around  Him 


MEANING   OF   THE   DEATH   OF  CHRIST        323 

these  men  that  He  had  so  long  loved  and  tried  to 
help  and  now  could  do  no  more  for  them, — saw  them 
wallowing  in  their  sin  and  blasphemy  as  they  stood 
laughing,  taunting  and  cursing  and  glorying  in  their 
fiendish  work, — no  wonder  the  pressure  of  grief  be- 
came too  great  for  human  capacity  to  sustain,  and 
His  great  heart  broke.  For  it  is  not  an  unknown 
thing  in  this  world  for  such  grief  to  kill.  We  have 
seen  many  a  father's  or  mother's  hair  whiten  and 
their  heads  bowed  down  to  a  premature  grave 
solely  through  the  pangs  of  sorrow  for  a  loved  but 
wayward  son.  And  that  was  a  love  for  only  one, 
though  deep  yet  short  of  perfect.  His  was  a  love 
perfect  and  all  absorbing,  and  it  was  not  for  one 
only  but  for  one  and  another  and  another,  for  many 
scores  and  hundreds  whom  He  loved,  but  who  with 
curses  and  hate  were  there  flaunting  their  fiendish 
wickedness  before  His  very  eyes. 

Surely  there  is  no  need  to  seek  for  other  causes 
for  His  death  when  we  know  that  that  cause  was 
present  and  operating.  No  need  to  seek  for  other 
causes  for  a  man's  death  when  we  see  him  fallen 
into  the  midst  of  a  furnace  of  fire.  If  Jesus'  nature 
was  such  as  we  have  assumed,  of  perfect  and  ab- 
sorbing love  for  all  with  whom  He  came  in  contact, 
with  no  mixture  of  selfishness,  such  certainly  must 
have  been  His  feelings  during  those  last  experiences 
which  He  was  compelled  to  go  through.  It  is 
doubtless  hard  for  us  to  believe  it,  and  impossible  to 
realize  or  form  a  mental  picture  of  it,  because  in 
all   our   experiences,    even   our   very    highest    and 


324  CHRISTOLOGY 

purest  love,  there  is  still  so  much  adulteration  of 
self,  and  the  very  basal  element  of  our  natures  is 
desire  for  self  so  that  we  can  form  no  imagination 
from  experience  of  what  the  feeling  of  perfect  love 
would  be.  But  our  reason  tells  us  that  such  must 
be  the  working  of  a  perfect  love,  and  no  human 
power  would  be  able  to  sustain  life,  with  a  perfect 
love,  in  the  experiences  that  Jesus  went  through. 

It  was  loving  wicked  men  so  much,  then,  that 
caused  His  death.  And  love  means  entering  as 
fully  into  all  the  feelings  and  experiences  of  the 
loved  one  as  if  they  were  one's  own.  That  is  the 
very  essence  of  love,  its  definition  from  one  point  of 
view.  In  the  most  real  and  literal  sense,  therefore, 
the  sins  of  men  were  laid  upon  Jesus.  He  took 
upon  Him  our  sins  and  suffered  for  our  sins,  and  died 
for  our  sins,  since  it  was  the  suffering  of  our  sins 
that  killed  Him.  We  find,  indeed,  that  the  very 
language  of  the  Biblical  assertions  was  fulfilled  in  a 
far  more  literal  and  realistic  sense  than  even  the 
older  theologians  interpreted.  Not  merely  in  the 
sense  of  fulfilling  a  necessary  judicial  formality,  or 
condition,  not  by  some  mysterious  and  mystical 
process  in  the  mind  of  the  moral  governor,  not  in 
any  indirect,  figurative  or  merely  formal  sense  at  all, 
but  in  the  most  real,  literal  and  actual  sense  He 
bore  the  load  of  other  men's  sins,  and  suffered  and 
died  as  the  result  of  it,  for  that  was  what  killed  Him. 

As  we  have  noted  above,  we  may  not  be  able  to 
fully  interpret  all  the  details  of  those  last  scenes.  It 
may  not  be  easy  to  see  the  full  meaning  and  cause 


MEANING   OF   THE   DEATH   OF  CHRIST        325 

of  tlie  specially  intense  agony  in  the  garden  just 
before  He  was  betrayed.  We  may  be  perfectly 
sure,  however,  that  it  was  not  caused  by  fear  of  the 
physical  suffering  of  His  death.  All  His  other  acts 
prove  that  beyond  a  doubt.  It  was  indeed  a  dread 
of  some  very  great  evil  that  was  impending  and  a 
prayer  that  it  might  be  avoided.  That  great  evil 
which  He  dreaded,  however,  was  not  the  physical 
sufferings  of  His  own  body  upon  the  cross  but  the 
crime  and  guilt  of  the  persons  who  were  going  to 
put  Him  there.  For  if  His  nature  was  pure  and 
perfect  love  that  must  have  been  far  more  suffering 
to  Him  than  His  own  physical  pain.  He  well  knew 
the  nature  of  these  men,  His  countrymen,  and  knew 
that  the  process  of  seizing  Him  and  bringing  Him  to 
trial  and  to  death  would  open  the  flood-gates  of 
passion  and  hate,  stir  up  the  very  depths  of  hell 
within  them  and  lead  them  to  commit  the  greatest 
crime  of  history.  And  He  loved  every  one  of  those 
men.  Was  there  not  some  way  that  this  terrible 
riot  of  sin  and  crime  could  be  avoided?  The  end 
of  His  public  career  had  come.  Even  death,  He 
probably  realized,  was  inevitable.  But  was  there 
not  some  way  in  which  He  could  come  even  to  death 
if  it  must  be,  and  yet  this  bitter  cup  of  sin  and  crime 
and  utter  ruin  to  so  many  loved  ones  be  avoided  ? 
Such  a  request  would  not  be  an  unreasonable  one, 
and  such  a  desire  and  explanation  of  His  agony 
would  fully  agree  with  all  the  other  circumstances  of 
the  case. 

I  have  said  we  may  not  fully  know  and  under- 


326  CHRISTOLOGY 

Stand  all  the  details  of  this  most  wonderful  occasion. 
Just  as  all  through  His  public  life  He  was  often, 
under  the  direction  of  the  Spirit,  enabled  or  led  to 
bring  into  use  the  superhuman  and  divine  powers 
for  certain  suitable  purposes, — healing  the  sick  and 
the  like, — so  it  is  not  impossible  that  there  might 
have  been  something  of  a  similar  nature  here,  and 
His  consciousness  specially  opened  for  a  time  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  ordinary  human  to  know  and  feel 
the  sins  and  sorrows  of  a  much  wider  circle  of  men 
than  those  He  had  actually  met,  or  even  perhaps  of 
the  whole  world.  And  it  might  have  been  this,  with 
its  resulting  intensity  of  pity  and  suffering,  that  ac- 
counted for  His  greatest  agony  and  final  death. 

NOT  THE  ACT  BUT  THE  LOVE  THAT  IT  REPRE- 
SENTED CHIEFLY  SIGNIFICANT 

However  we  are  not  limited  to  such  a  theory  in 
order  to  bring  Him  into  contact  with  all  our  sins  and 
needs.  For  it  was  not  the  single  act  which  took 
place  within  the  short  compass  of  a  few  hours  of  time 
that  had  significance  in  relation  to  our  salvation. 
That  was  indeed  but  the  exhibition  in  the  form 
suited  to  the  limits  of  man's  comprehension  of  a 
great  eternal  fact. 

It  is  the  great  eternal  fact,  not  the  limited  and 
temporary  exhibition  of  it,  which  has  significance  in 
relation  to  man's  salvation.  That  fact  is  the  infinite 
love  of  God,  or  translated  into  other  language  it 
means  that  all  man's  good  is  felt  as  pleasure  by  God, 
and  all  man's  sin  and  suffering  is  felt  as  suffering  by 


MEANING   OF  THE   DEATH  OF  CHRIST        327 

God.  It  was  not  any  mysterious  quantitative  or 
qualitative  value  in  the  sufferings  of  Christ  upon  the 
cross,  but  because  this  great  fact  of  God's  love  and 
His  suffering  with  all  the  sufferings  of  men  lay  be- 
hind it,  and  that  suffering  on  the  cross  was  just  a 
little  glimpse  of  the  suffering  of  God  for  man's  sins, 
exhibited  in  finite  dimensions  and  human  form  and 
surroundings,  so  that  we  would  be  able  to  appreciate 
and  feel  it. 

CHRIST'S   FINITE   MAGNITUDE   FIRST  MADE  IT 

POSSIBLE  TO  SEE  SIGNS   OF  GOD'S 

SUFFERING  IN  LOVE 

There  was,  however,  most  important  reason  and 
use  for  this  temporary  exhibition  of  God's  love  and 
suffering  in  human  form.  There  was  most  impor- 
tant reason  and  use  in  its  effect  upon  us,  upon  our 
relations  to  one  another  and  to  God,  bringing  us 
into  that  position  and  condition  in  which,  as  we 
have  seen  above,  the  instinct  of  punishment  may 
rightly  and  safely  be  discarded.  One  of  the  necessary 
requirements  of  that  position  and  condition  we  saw 
to  be  love  ruling  as  the  dominant  element  in  the 
character,  that  is  to  say,  either  that  state  actually 
existing  or,  at  least,  some  change  accomplished  that 
would  eventually  produce  that  state.  At  least  one 
of  the  great  objects  of  that  exhibition  of  God's  suffer- 
ing in  human  form  was  to  produce  that  state  in  men. 
Love  is  preeminently  a  social  faculty,  not  only  in  its 
operation  but  also  in  its  genesis.  It  is  by  seeing 
this   great   exhibition  of  love  towards  us  that  men 


328  CHRISTOLOGY 

come  to  have  that  feeling  of  attachment  and  devo- 
tion towards  God  which  changes  their  character  and 
eventually  makes  love  the  dominating  factor.  It 
was  this  exhibition  of  the  love  of  God  through  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ  that  became  the  efficient  cause 
capable  of  changing  men  and  lifting  them  up  to  a 
higher  level  or  a  new  species  in  which  it  is  possible 
to  pass  over  their  sins  without  punishment. 

We  must  remember,  moreover,  that  this  temporary 
exhibition  of  love  and  suffering  in  the  person  of 
Jesus  Christ  cannot  be  divorced  from  the  great 
eternal  fact  of  God's  continual  love  and  suffering 
with  men.  They  are  one  and  the  same  fact.  That 
love  and  suffering  was  not  a  thing  resolved  upon  for 
a  certain  time,  and  when  that  time  came  begun, 
carried  through  and  finished,  and  being  altogether 
ended  now  remaining  only  as  a  historical  fact  to 
look  back  upon.  That  suffering  through  love  by  God 
continues  now  just  the  same  as  then  and  has  existed 
just  the  same  from  the  beginning.  It  was  only  that 
at  that  particular  time  it  was  for  a  short  time  made 
apparent  in  such  a  form  that  we  could  see  and  feel 
it.  Light  from  the  sun  at  night  is  streaming  con- 
stantly through  all  parts  of  space  but  only  where  a 
moon  or  a  planet  comes  to  reflect  it  does  it  become 
so  that  we  can  see  and  know  it.  So  the  appearance 
in  human  form,  in  Galilee  and  on  the  cross,  was  only 
a  means  to  make  that  love  and  suffering  visible  to 
us,  but  the  love  and  suffering  have  been  from  the 
beginning  and  are  now  an  eternal  fact.  And  it  is 
the  fact  of  the  love  and  suffering  of  God  that  makes 


MEANING   OF  THE   DEATH   OF  CHRIST        329 

feasible  the  passing  over  of  sins  without  punishment 
for  all  those  who  are  in  the  peculiar  relation  which  is 
brought  about  by  seeing  and  appreciating  that  love 
and  suffering. 

The  suffering  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  then,  was 
not  an  isolated,  independent  fact,  arbitrarily  deter- 
mined upon  by  God,  and  specially  brought  about  by 
specially  bringing  into  existence  just  at  that  time  a 
number  of  special  conditions  and  agencies  specific- 
ally and  exclusively  designed  to  produce  that  suffer- 
ing and  death,  that  suffering  and  death  having  some 
peculiar  quality  and  value  by  which  it  changed  the 
feeling,  or  at  least  the  attitude  of  God  towards  men, 
and  led  Him  to  forgive  their  sins.  On  the  contrary 
the  attitude  of  God  towards  men  was  the  same  from 
first  to  last,  from  eternity  to  the  present  moment, 
and  that  suffering  unto  death  of  Jesus  was  the  result 
of  that  one  constant  attitude  of  God,  or  rather  it  was 
itself  that  attitude  of  God,  appearing  in  human  con- 
ditions so  that  we  could  comprehend  it.  And  it  is 
only  because  that  suffering  unto  death  is  thus  the  real 
expression,  the  actual  appearing  of  the  constant  atti- 
tude of  God  towards  man  that  it  has  such  significance 
in  relation  to  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  It  is  not  be- 
cause God  has  been  changed,  but  because  He  is 
what  He  is,  and  what  that  death  and  suffering  show 
Him  to  be,  that  sin  is  forgiven. 

If  the  question  is  asked,  "  Would  not  forgiveness 
of  sin  have  resulted  anyway  from  the  very  character 
of  God  if  Christ  had  not  died  ?  "  the  answer  is  that 
that  is  an  impossible  contingency.     God  being  what 


330  CHRISTOLOGY 

He  is  it  is  just  as  impossible  for  that  appearing, 
suffering  and  dying  not  to  have  taken  place  as  it 
would  be  for  heat  not  to  radiate  from  fire  in  a  cold 
room.  It  is  precisely  because  that  suffering  unto 
death  of  Christ  is  the  inevitable  expression  of  the 
nature  of  God  that  it  has  its  significance. 

BIBLE  EXPRESSIONS  AS  TO  THE  ATONEMENT 

If  it  be  asked,  How  does  this  conception  agree 
with  the  expressions  in  the  Bible  itself  with  regard 
to  the  atonement,  we  must  notice  in  the  first  place 
that  the  references  to  the  atonement  and  death  of 
Christ  in  the  Bible  are  never  made  from  the  stand- 
point of  metaphysics  and  analytical  explanation,  but 
are  chiefly  hortatory,  from  the  emotional  standpoint, 
designed  to  influence  men's  conduct.  In  the  second 
place  we  must  bear  in  mind  the  marked  fondness  of 
all  Hebrew  speech  for  figurative  and  symbolic  lan- 
guage, often  even  drawing  the  terminology  from 
some  feature  of  the  conceived  figure  which  is  not 
strictly  applicable.  (Notice,  for  instance,  such  pas- 
sages as  I  Kings  xix.  17  or  xxi.  24,  where  it  is  the 
general  picture  rather  than  the  detail  cited  which  is 
true.)  In  the  third  place  it  is  inevitable,  in  describ- 
ing acts  of  God,  that  we  use  some  symbolism  drawn 
from  human  acts,  which  can  only  partially  be  appli- 
cable. 

Truth  is  many  sided,  and  the  meaning  of  a  fact 
may  not  be  exhausted  by  a  single  aspect  of  it.  I 
think  it  will  be  found  that  this  conception  would  fit 
the  conditions  of  any  of  the  various  theories  of  the 


MEANING  OF  THE   DEATH   OF  CHRIST        33 1 

atonement,  whichever  one  it  may  be  judged  that  the 
Bible  really  teaches, — the  theory  of  vicarious  substi- 
tution, the  so-called  "  governmental  theory,"  the 
"  moral  influence  theory  "  or  any  other.  These  all 
concern  questions  merely  of  judicial  relations,  with 
which  science  has  nothing  to  do.  It  only  treats  of 
the  fact  as  a  fact.  Viewed  thus  this  interpretation 
of  the  fact  is  quite  in  accord  with  all  the  Bible  refer- 
ences and  allusions  to  it. 

We  could  not  better  characterize  the  Bible  state- 
ments as  to  the  death  of  Christ  than  to  say  they 
represent  it  as  corresponding  to  the  sacrifices  offered 
on  the  altar  for  sins  in  the  Old  Testament  religious 
ceremonies.  As  it  is  commonly  expressed,  they 
were  the  type  of  which  His  death  was  the  fulfillment, 
they  were  the  pictures  of  which  it  was  the  reality. 
This  cannot  mean,  however,  that  the  Old  Testament 
worshipper,  in  offering  his  slain  lamb  on  the  altar, 
really  knew  that  some  time  Christ  was  to  die  upon 
the  cross,  and  consciously  presented  the  lamb  with 
the  thought  of  its  resemblance  to  that  occurrence. 
It  means  rather  that  the  circumstances  of  the  case, 
and  the  thoughts  his  sacrifice  was  adapted  to  arouse 
in  his  mind,  were  similar  to  those  in  the  case  of 
Christ's  death.     That  is  precisely  what  we  find. 

There  were  three  great  facts  pictured  or  suggested 
by  those  old  sacrifices.  First,  the  great  law  of 
retribution, — that  sin  brings  suffering  and  death. 
This  is  symbolically  pictured  by  the  death  of  the 
lamb.  It  is  also  literally  fulfilled  by  the  death  of 
Christ,  for  our  sins  did  cause  His  death.     Secondly, 


332  CHRISTOLOGY 

it  was  not  the  sinner  but  another,  namely,  the  lamb, 
that  was  made  to  suffer  there.  This  also  was  liter- 
ally fulfilled,  since  it  was  not  the  sinner  but  Christ 
that  died,  by  suffering  over  the  sinfulness  of  men. 
Third,  after  the  offering  it  was  declared  by  the  priest 
and  recognized  by  the  sinner  that  he  would  not 
have  to  bear  suffering  for  his  sins.  This  also  is  true 
of  all  that  are  connected  with  Christ.  Though  there 
were  other  subordinate  details,  such  as  the  leading 
of  a  scapegoat  far  off  into  the  wilderness,  the  dis- 
position of  the  blood,  the  burning  of  the  flesh,  and 
other  things,  all  of  which  had  their  use  in  making 
impressions  on  the  minds  of  a  simple  and  childlike 
people,  yet  the  essential  facts  were  the  three  stated 
above,  all  of  which  had  their  full  counterpart  in  the 
case  of  the  death  of  Christ. 

There  are  no  mere  formalities  or  make-believes  in 
God's  workings.  There  are  declarative  acts,  but 
they  all  grow  out  of  great  realities  which  lie  behind 
them  and  of  which  they  are  the  expression.  Christ 
did  not  die  bearing  our  sins,  merely  in  the  sense 
that  God  chose  to  accept  in  that  light  a  death  that 
came  upon  Him  from  a  natural  cause.  He  really 
died  from  and  through  our  sins  in  the  most  literal 
sense,  just  as  literally  as  we  might  say  that  a  man 
died  from  a  fever.  It  was  bearing  in  sympathy  the 
load  of  our  sins,  bearing  by  the  identifying  power  of 
love  the  shame  and  degradation  of  those  sins,  that 
caused  His  death.  In  what  fuller  sense  could  we  say 
that  retribution  of  our  sins  was  borne  by  Him,  and 
His  life  was  sacrificed  by  it  ? 


MEANING   OF   THE   DEATH   OF   CHRIST        333 
THE  SUPREME  FACT  IS  THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

And  notice,  too,  that  we  are  free  from  liability  to 
suffering  or  punishment,  not  through  some  fictitious 
meaning  that  is  declaratively  attributed  by  God  to 
that  death,  but  by  what  that  death  was  in  its  inmost 
essence,  by  the  great  fact  of  which  it  was  but  the 
conspicuous  expression.  It  was  not,  indeed,  any 
qualitative  or  quantitative  value  in  the  nerve  sensa- 
tions or  physical  sufferings.  No  physical  act  ever 
has  in  itself  any  ethical  value.  It  has  ethical  stand- 
ing only  as  the  externalization  of  some  mental  or 
emotional  state  which  lies  behind  it  and  of  which  it 
is  the  expression.  It  is  the  mental  fact  alone  that 
has  ethical  significance  and  value.  So  it  was  the 
mental  fact  of  a  love  so  great  as  to  cause  such  suffer- 
ing and  death  over  our  sins  that  is  the  one  fact  of 
supreme  value  in  this  transaction.  It  is  the  *'  God 
so  loved  the  world  "  that  is  the  real  significant  fact, 
and  it  contains  and  transcends  all  the  details  which 
result  from  it. 

It  has  been  sometimes  said  that  for  God  or  a 
special  divinely  sustained  and  constituted  person  to 
endure  a  physical  suffering,  instead  of  having  more 
virtue  would  have  really  far  less  virtue  than  for  some 
weaker  being  to  consent  to  receive  it.  But  it  was 
not  the  being  willing  to  receive  that  suffering  that 
has  main  significance.  What  is  significant  is  that 
God  had  such  great  love  that  it  produced  that  suffer- 
ing. 

Nor  is  our  freedom  from  liability  to  punishment 


334  CHRISTOLOGY 

something  that  is  merely  formally  declared  by  God. 
It  is  so  formally  declared,  but  it  also  is  a  fact,  that 
has  its  roots  in  a  sufficient  state  or  condition.  By 
becoming  united  to  Christ  persons  become  members 
of  an  order  of  beings  in  whose  economy,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  punishment  has  no  place.  There 
is  neither  need  nor  demand  for  it.  And  they  are  so 
because  a  basal  change  has  taken  place  at  the 
springs  of  their  life  which  constitutes  them  a  new 
species,  with  a  different  life  and  character  eventually 
emerging.  They  are  "  born  again."  Instead  of  the 
old  self  of  ego-centred  desire,  a  new,  dominating, 
central  motive,  love,  has  been  at  least  planted  in 
them  as  a  germinating  plant  that  shall  eventually 
grow  and  expand  till  it  dominates  the  whole  nature. 

And  the  death, — and  life, — of  Christ  brought  them 
into  that  condition,  not  only  formally  and  declara- 
tively  but  efficiently,  by  producing  the  change  in 
them  that  transforms  them  into  the  nature  charac- 
teristic of  this  new  species  in  which  punishment  is 
obsolete.  Only  life  can  beget  life,  and  love  also  be- 
gets love.  It  was  that  vivid  exhibition  of  the  love 
of  God  which  planted  the  seed  of  that  dominating 
love  in  their  hearts,  which  raises  them  to  this  new 
biological  species. 

For  that  was  the  one  great  reason  of  the  incarna- 
tion,— and  the  passion  was  only  a  natural  incident 
and  inevitable  consequence  of  the  incarnation.  It 
was  simply  to  enable  us  to  see,  and  so  be  influenced 
by,  something  that  always  existed  in  the  nature  of 
God.     We  only  can  see  the  love  and  gentler  attri- 


MEANING   OF   THE   DEATH   OF   CHRIST        335 

butes  of  infinite  God,  by  having  them  exhibited 
through  a  small  organism  that  will  thrill  and  bend 
before  emotions  which  the  infinite  greatness  of  God's 
personality  bears  with  composure  though  He  feels 
them  just  as  much.  The  whole  great  world  is  cir- 
cled and  saturated  with  magnetism,  but  it  takes  the 
small  bulk  of  the  tiny  magnetic  needle  to  make  its 
presence  visible.  God  is  bearing  all  the  time  a  load 
of  love  and  pain  that  would  crush  any  man,  but  we 
would  be  unable  to  see  any  result  of  its  activity  till 
we  see  Him,  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  attempt- 
ing to  bear  it  with  the  capacities  of  a  man.  All  the 
flow  of  feelings  that  make  no  visible  indication  of 
their  presence  in  the  eternal  calm  of  God's  infinity, 
when  flowing  in  the  circumscribed  smallness  of  a 
human  personality  become  clearly  evident.  They 
show  Him  to  be  the  tender,  loving  friend  and  suffer- 
ing Saviour,  draw  all  men  unto  Him  and  make  them 
love  and  trust  Him. 

The  process  of  our  salvation  is  not  an  arbitrary 
expedient,  or  mysteriously  conceived  scheme,  but 
something  that  grows  naturally  and  necessarily  out 
of  the  very  nature  of  God.  It  is  merely  the  inevi- 
table expression  of  that  nature,  for  "  God  is  love," 
and  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  on  Him 
should  not  perish  but  have  everlasting  life." 


Appendix  A 

THE  MIND 

SIR  OLIVER  LODGE,  in  ''  Life  and  Matter,"  reply- 
ing to  Professor  HaeckeVs  monistic  theories  in 
"The  Riddle  of  the  Universe,"  very  conclusively 
shows  that  there  is  a  province  for  life  and  mind 
activity  entirely  beyond  and  outside  of  the  utmost  that 
can  be  claimed  or  conceived  as  the  activity  of  matter  and 
force.  He  holds,  just  as  we  have  stated  in  the  text,  that 
the  activity  of  mind  consists  in  the  control  and  direction 
of  energies.  It  is  seen  as  guidance.  This  guidance  is  a 
fact  that  we  must  recognize,  unless  we  are  prepared  to 
accept  an  extreme  theory  of  fatalism,  which  not  only 
abolishes  all  morality  and  human  responsibility,  but  also 
falsifies  the  whole  field  of  human  consciousness. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  even  Professor  Haeckel 
and  other  extreme  monists  are  beginning  to  recognize 
this,  and  to  provide  for  it  in  their  monistic  systems  by 
attaching  some  rudiments  of  mental  acts  and  capacities 
to  the  material  atoms,  or  to  some  other  more  ultimate 
substance  that  is  conceived  of  to  be  the  basis  of  both  mat- 
ter and  energy.  They  then  conceive  that  the  high  and 
complex  activities  seen  as  the  thought  processes  of  men 
are  produced  by  syntheses  or  aggregations  in  some  way  of 
these  atom  mind  rudiments.^ 

Very  well  !  For  the  purposes  of  our  argument  here 
that  conception  and  explanation  will  serve  as  well  as  any 
other.  "We  are  only  concerned  to  know  that  an  agency 
such  as  the  human  mind  exists,  whatever  its  composition 
or  genesis.  If  the  mere  fact  of  aggregation  and  articula- 
tion is  capable  of  producing  such  a  highly  efficient  agency 
of  this  nature  in  the  human  body,  is  it  illogical  to  sup- 
pose that  in  the  much  greater  and  marvellously  articulated 

1  Cf.  Lodge's  "Life  and  Matter,"  pp.  41,  97,  112,  etc.  Haeckel's 
"  Riddle  of  the  Universe,"  pp.  78-80,  etc. 

337 


338  APPENDIX   A 

aggregate  of  the  great  universe,  tliere  may  also  be  some 
similar  synthesis  into  a  unified  agent  of  correspondingly 
great  efficiency.  Our  argument  has  shown  the  necessity  of 
the  working  of  such  an  agency  as  the  human  spirit  is  in 
the  control  or  starting  of  the  present  universe  process, 
and  here  we  would  see,  on  this  theory,  that  it  is  in- 
herently probable  that  there  would  and  must  be  such  a 
supreme  guiding  agent  from  the  very  nature  of  the  sub- 
stance of  which  the  universe  is  assumed  to  be  composed. 

If  we  held  that  theory  we  might  go  on  to  elaborate  that 
it  is  impossible  to  conceive  that  the  material  attributes  of 
the  fundamental,  basal  essence  ''secrete"  or  create  the 
mental  attributes  out  of  their  own  material  substance.  One 
must  be  just  as  essential  and  primitive  as  the  other.  The 
mental  functions  must  be  just  as  much  an  essential  feature 
of  that  supposed  primitive,  basal  substance  as  the  material 
or  the  kinetic.  There  is  no  reasonableness  in  making  the 
mental  attributes  an  appendage  to  the  material  any  more 
than  in  making  the  material  an  appendage  to  the  mental, 
for  both  must  be  equally  basal  and  primitive.  If  either,  it 
would  be  more  obvious  to  give  preference  to  the  mental, 
for  its  function  is  to  dominate  and  control  the  material 
and  energy.  Certainly  by  this  theory  its  place  is  es- 
tablished as  one  of  the  great  primal  constituent  elements 
of  the  universe. 

If  that  is  true,  and  we  remember  that  we  are  dealing 
with  an  absolutely  infinite  length  of  time  in  which  any 
processes  possible  must  have  been  progressing,  if  this 
mental  constituent  is  capable  of  organizing  into  unified 
syntheses  of  such  capable  efficiency  as  we  see  in  the  human 
mind  it  is  illogical  to  suppose  that  anything  short  of  a 
synthesis  of  the  totality  in  the  whole  universe  would  be 
the  limit  of  possibility,  and  in  an  infinite  space  of  time  it 
is  inconceivable  that  anything  less  than  the  highest  pos- 
sible perfection  should  be  attained.  We  are  therefore 
logically  compelled  to  suppose  a  unified  synthesis  of  all 
the  mentality  in  the  whole  universe,  exercising  over  every 
part  of  it  the  most  perfect  possible  guidance  and  control. 
That  is  certainly  a  broad  enough  basis  for  any  theistic 
concept,  and  it  is  precisely  what  we  have,  in  the  text, 
assumed  as  the  basis  and  character  of  the  evolution  proc- 
ess. 


APPENDIX  A  339 

But,  as  suggested  in  the  text,  the  latest  studies  of  the 
new  psychology  seem  to  make  it  more  impossible  to  evade 
the  recoguitiou  of  mind  as  an  entity  independent  of  and 
detachable  fi'om  matter.  One  of  the  most  ludicrous 
blunders  of  one  group  of  psychological  investigators 
seems  to  have  grown  directly  out  of  the  fixed  determina- 
tion to  find  a  genetic  connection  between  all  mental  acts 
and  some  material  substance.  In  one  school  of  investi- 
gators in  France  it  was  firmly  held  for  a  long  while  that 
contact  with  different  substances,  different  magnetic  cur- 
reuts,  or  touching  different  parts  of  the  body,  would  pro- 
duce different  species  of  thoughts  in  a  hypnotized  subject. 
It  is  almost  pathetically  amusing  now  to  read  the  accounts 
these  investigators  give  of  the  methods  of  their  experi- 
ments. They  seriously  tell  what  kind  of  metal  or  wood 
they  had  used  to  produce  a  certain  result,  or  where  they 
had  applied  a  magnet ;  and  they  give  wise  catalogues  of 
what  hypnotic  acts  will  be  produced  by  touching  with  a 
wooden  rod,  what  kind  require  a  brass  rod  or  some  other 
metal,  some  that  are  produced  by  a  steel  rod  and  not  by 
an  iron  one,  and  the  like.  It  has  now  been  fully  demon- 
strated that  it  is  really  mental  suggestion  that  produces 
all  the  results  in  hypnotism,  and  that,  in  the  experiments 
of  these  investigators  from  which  they  drew  such  strange 
conclusions,  it  was  really  some  unnoticed  suggestions 
made  by  the  operators  along  with  their  use  of  the  rods 
and  magnets  that  produced  the  diversity  of  results. ' 

When  viewed  in  this  light  it  is  very  significant  what 
remarkable  power  suggestion,  a  purely  mental  act,  can 
have  over  matter  and  material  processes.  Not  only  can 
pain  and  all  the  phenomena  of  fever,  paralysis  and 
various  other  diseases  be  produced  merely  by  suggestion 
in  hypnotized  subjects  but  actual  material,  bodily  changes 
can  be  produced  in  the  same  way.  Professor  Bernheim 
tells  of  one  instance  where  he  placed  an  ordinary  postage 
stamp  on  the  back  of  a  patient,  telling  him  that  it  was  a 
fly-blister,  and  not  only  did  the  patient  have  the  sensa- 
tions but  when  it  was  removed  an  actual  blister  was 
found  to  have  formed  under  its  influence,  through  the 
suggestion  given, 

*  Cf.  "  The  Psychology  of  Suggestion,"  Sidis,  pp.  80-85. 


340  APPENDIX  A 

He  relates  other  experiments  where  blood  was  made  to 
actually  exude  from  the  skin  by  the  same  means.  The 
experimenter  traced  the  name  of  the  patient  on  his  fore- 
arm with  a  blunt  object  and  then  told  him  that  at  four 
o'clock  he  would  go  to  sleep  and  his  name  would  appear 
traced  in  blood.  At  the  hour  designated  the  man  fell 
into  a  sleep  and  his  name  in  red  tracings  appeared  on  his 
arm  and  some  blood  exuded  with  it.'  Similar  results  have 
been  obtained  by  other  experimenters.^  These  are  but 
extreme  instances  of  the  remarkable  influence  which  the 
mind  and  purely  mental  causes  are  found  to  have  over  the 
body  and  its  functions  and  diseases, — a  subject  which 
under  the  title  of  *'  Psycho-Therapeutics  "  is  receiving  a 
great  amount  of  investigation  at  the  present  time. 

Another  kind  of  phenomena  which  lately  has  been  re- 
ceiving very  searching  investigation,  and  seems  to  yield 
more  incontestible  proofs  along  this  line  is  what  is  com- 
monly called  "Telepathy"  or  "Direct  Thought  Trans- 
ference." While  we  can  by  no  means  say  that  the  dis- 
cussions on  the  subject  are  closed,  yet  those  competent  ex- 
perimenters and  observers  who  have  made  the  closest 
study  of  the  subject  are  convinced  that  it  is  possible  for 
one  mind  to  convey  impressions,  sensations  or  thoughts  to 
another  mind  at  a  distance,  without  physical  means.  It 
is  only  necessary  to  mention  such  names  as  Prof.  Wm. 
James  of  Harvard,  J.  H.  Hyslop  of  Columbia,  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  Sir  Wm.  Crooks  and  scores  of  other  scientists  of 
the  highest  attainments  and  most  competent  judgment, 
who  have  fully  satisfied  themselves  by  their  own  experi- 
ments that  direct  thought  transference  without  physical 
means  is  possible.  In  Appendix  B  I  have  given  a  lit- 
tle presentation  of  the  subject,  with  a  number  of  illustra- 
tions, to  which  the  reader  is  referred  at  this  point. 

Some,  perhaps,  have  seen  some  general  external  re- 
semblance between  direct  thought  transference  at  a  dis- 
tance and  "  Wireless  Telegraphy."  From  this  they  may 
have  imagined  in  a  vague  sort  of  a  way  that  it  might  be 
possible  to  explain  direct  thought  transference  by  some 
physical  process  as  yet  undiscovered.     But  the  resem- 

'  Cf.  Hudson's  "  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,"  p.  153. 

»  Cf.  Cutten,  "  The  Psychological  Phenomena  of  Christianity,"  pp.  81-87. 


APPENDIX   A  341 

blance  is  entirely  general  and  external  and  not  of  a  char- 
acter to  give  ground  for  any  such  expectation.  Really  it 
has  no  more  signiticance  in  that  respect  than  sight  or 
hearing  at  a  distance.  Indeed  not  as  much.  The  main 
principle  of  wireless  telegraphy  is  a  perfectly  common 
and  simple  one.  It  is  merely  the  transmission  and  recep- 
tion of  streams  of  vibration,  i^recisely  as  sight  and  hear- 
ing are.  The  physical  principle  is  perfectly  simple.  It 
is  merely  a  problem  of  making  apparatus  able  to  send  suf- 
ficiently strong  vibrations  or  delicate  enough  to  detect 
very  faint  ones.  It  really  is  more  simple  than  sight  or 
hearing,  for  it  consists  of  one  stream  of  homogenous 
vibrations,  merely  broken  up  by  interruptions.  There  ia 
no  analogy  at  all  between  that  and  the  problem  of  send- 
ing, or  causing  to  be  conceived  at  a  distance,  sensations, 
form,  colour,  words  and  even  abstract  thoughts,  all  with 
equal  facility  and  in  the  same  operation. 

Besides  it  requires  specifically  adapted  instruments 
both  for  sending  and  receiving  in  wireless  telegraphy  and 
in  all  other  forms  of  physical  transmission.  For  the  com- 
paratively easy  forms  of  vibration  concerned  in  sight  and 
hearing  it  requires  decidedly  obvious  and  bulky  instru- 
ments in  the  human  organism.  For  this  infinitely  more 
difiScult  and  delicate  operation, — if  it  be  a  physical  one, 
— we  find  absolutely  no  trace  of  any  instrument  at  all  in 
the  human  body.  We  know  definitely  many  things  con- 
cerning the  mathematical  laws  and  limitations  of  motion 
and  energy,  and  are  not  at  liberty  to  give  our  imagina- 
tions free  rein  for  unlimited  speculation. 

In  this  way  then,  as  well  as  in  various  other  ways, 
science  is  finding  things  done  in  the  world  that  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  the  operations  of  matter  and  energy, 
and  thus  is  meeting  the  challenge  which  the  materialists 
have, — unjustly, ^thrown  down,  to  furnish  some  evidence 
of  the  soul's  existence  which  can  be  detected  by  their  in- 
struments of  precision. 

Whatever  is  the  explanation  of  these  strange  occur- 
rences and  of  these  remarkable  powers  shown  in  these 
experiments  where  one  mind  is  influenced  by  the  thoughts 
of  a  distant  mind,  there  is  no  known  physical  process  that 
would  be  at  all  adapted  to  account  for  them,  and  it  is  im- 
possible to  conceive  of  any  that  would.     Something  is 


342  APPENDIX   A 

done,  therefore  something  must  have  done  it.  As  all 
known  material  and  physical  processes  would  not  be  able 
to  do  it,  the  agent  that  did  it  must  be  something  else,  and 
as  the  pheuomenon  is  purely  mental  or  psychical  the  ob- 
vious and  insistent  answer  is  that  it  is  done  by  some 
agency  whose  essence  is  of  that  character. 

If  in  all  ordinary  cases  of  perceiving,  willing  and  the 
like,  the  claim  is  made  that  there  is  an  observed  biaiu 
or  nerve  change  in  connection  with  every  thought,  and 
therefore  we  cannot  be  sure  that  there  is  any  thinking 
agent  other  than  the  matter  and  energy  in  the  brain, 
here  is  a  case  where  something  is  done  entirely  without, 
and  transcending  the  powers  of  matter  and  energy.  Il- 
logical as  that  objection  is  even  in  the  former  case,  it  can- 
not possibly  be  made  here,  and  the  whole  force  of  the 
phenomenon  goes  to  establish  the  reality  of  mind  as  a 
separate  active  entity, — of  an  agency  that  is  not  matter 
or  energy  but  a  third  something  whose  characteristic 
activity  is  thought  and  control. 

With  this  one  unequivocal  instance  of  the  separate,  in- 
dependent working  of  a  purely  mental  agency,  added 
certainty  is  given  to  the  claim  that  in  all  ordinary  living 
activities,  such  as  perceiving,  thinking  and  willing,  there 
is  a  separate,  non-material  entity,  mind,  acting.  The 
proof  is  sufficiently  compelling  without  it,  for  in  all  those 
cases  there  is  an  element  of  the  phenomenon  that  is  en- 
tirely alien  to  all  the  attributes  of  matter  and  energy,  and 
so  is  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  third  category.  But  to 
those  who  choose  to  ignore  logic,  and  insist  on  "being 
shown,"  these  and  various  other  phenomena  that  are  be- 
ing discovered  by  the  new  psychology  are  bringing  the 
demanded  optical  proof,  and  putting  the  proof  of  the  ex- 
istence of  mind  on  the  same  plane  as  the  proof  of  the  ex- 
istence of  "  argon  "  or  of  gravitation. 


Appendix  B 

TELEPATHY 

WE  are  not  really  compelled  to  demonstrate  that 
^'Telepathy  "  or  thought  transference  without 
physical  means  actually  takes  place.  It  would 
be  quite  sufficient  for  our  purposes  here  to 
show  that,  as  Mr.  Osgood  Mason  suggests  :  ' '  Telepathy 
can  no  longer  be  classed  with  fads  and  fancies.  If  not 
already  an  accepted  fact  it  has  certainly  attained  to  the 
dignity  of  a  theory  supported  by  both  facts  and  experi- 
ments." ^  It  would  be  satisfactory  merely  to  be  able  to 
indicate  that  the  idea  of  prophets  receiving  communica- 
tions by  a  method  similar  to  telepathy  is  not  an  absurdity 
to  be  rejected  as  contrary  to  science.  Yet  as  we  go  on  to 
inquire  into  the  subject  I  think  we  will  be  surprised  to 
see  what  a  large  amount  of  evidence  there  is  that  telep- 
athy is  really  a  proved  fact. 

It  cannot  indeed  be  said  that  all  the  body  of  scientists 
or  psychologists  accept  telepathy  as  a  proved  fact.  It  is 
rather  a  suggestive  circumstance,  however,  that  most  of 
those  who  refuse  so  to  accept  it  take  the  ground  that  all 
the  alleged  evidence  is  of  such  a  dubious  and  unreliable 
character  that  "  It  is  not  worthy  of  serious  consideration." 
Almost  none  of  them  base  their  disbelief  on  a  competent 
study  of  the  accumulated  evidence.  "When  scientists  of 
such  world-wide  reputation  as  the  late  Prof.  William 
James  of  Harvard,  one  of  the  very  foremost  psychologists 
of  this  country,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir  AYm.  Crooks  and 
scores  of  others,  after  full  examination  and  the  most  rigid 
tests  that  science  can  devise,  have  openly  declared  their 
belief  that  what  is  called  "Telepathy"  does  occur,  the 
position  of  those  who  pronounce  its  evidence  "  not 
worthy  of  consideration,"  and  decline  to  investigate  it  at 
all  is,  to  say  the  least,  rather  unfortunate. 

1 "  Telepathy  and  the  Subliminal  Self,"  p.  309. 

343 


344  APPENDIX  B 

Human  science  and  human  thought  seem  to  go  through 
three  stages.  First  is  the  credulous  stage,  secoud  the 
sceptical  stage,  and  third  the  couservativeiy  coustructive 
stage.  In  the  first  there  is  the  childlike  disposition  to 
believe  everything  that  is  asserted.  All  kinds  of  marvels 
and  fairy  tales  find  quiet,  undisturbed  acceptance.  In 
the  second  stage,  having  discovered  the  faculty  of  scep- 
tical doubt,  like  a  keen,  bright  new  tool,  men  go  around 
hacking  it  into  everything.  It  is  a  calloM',  sophomoric 
state  of  mind,  which  thinks  it  is  a  mark  of  superior  dis- 
crimination to  be  able  to  see  reasons  to  doubt  things 
which  others  believe.  With  more  maturity  comes  the 
feeling  of  responsibility  for  constructive  belief,  a  much 
more  onerous  and  exacting  situation  than  the  previous 
one  of  facile  scepticism. 

What  is  true  of  human  thought  in  general  is  specially 
true  of  that  thought  when  it  first  comes  to  face  some  new 
field  or  department  of  belief.  With  regard  to  all  this  as 
yet  rather  obscure  field  of  psychical  facts  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  a  considerable  part  of  scientific  thought  is  yet 
in  this  stage  of  simple  scepticism,  and  contents  itself  if  it 
can  only  find  plausible  excuse  for  continued  doubt. 

But  scientific  thought,  to  be  really  entitled  to  be  called 
discriminating,  must  be  equally  discriminating  on  the 
positive  as  on  the  negative  side,  not  only  to  see  how  far 
it  is  possible  to  maintain  a  plausible  doubt,  but  rather  to 
be  able  to  detect  the  exact  point  at  which,  though  doubt 
is  still  quite  possible,  yet  there  is  sufficient  evidence  to 
properly  warrant  belief.  The  supreme  aim  of  science  is 
not  merely  to  avoid  error  but  to  discover  truth.  The 
latter  is  a  much  more  difficult  and  delicate  operation 
than  the  former,  and  requires  a  much  more  robust  and 
capable  discrimination. 

The  evidence  upon  which  those  that  believe  in  the  oc- 
currence of  telepathy  base  their  belief  is  both  enormous 
in  volume,  varied  in  character  and  attested  in  many  cases 
by  all  the  criteria  that  are  demanded  in  any  scientific 
test.  The  evidence  is  not  merely  the  strange  tales  of  ap- 
paritions and  hallucinations,  but  a  large  part  of  it  consists 
in  laboratory  experiments,  that  can  be  repeated  at  will, 
and  whose  results  are  open  to  any  one  that  will  take  the 
pains  to  repeat  the  experiments. 


APPENDIX   B  345 

The  literature  of  the  subject  is  growing  to  be  quite  ex- 
tensive. I  will  refer  here  briefly  to  a  few  sources  where 
the  subject  is  discussed  more  or  less  fully  and  where  those 
who  wish  may  find  material  fur  more  satisfactory  investi- 
gation. We  may  remark  of  one  class  of  the  evidence, 
which  consists  in  reported  experiences  of  a  seemingly 
supernormal  character,  that  though  this  is  the  portion  of 
the  evidence  to  which  science  would  accord  the  least 
weight  of  credence,  yet,  as  suggested  by  ]\Ir.  Podmore, — 
This  kind  of  evidence,  less  convincing  in  itself,  becomes 
much  more  significant  when  once  we  have  seen  one  com- 
pletely uudoubtable  case  that  fully  demonstrates  the  fact 
of  the  occurrence  of  telepathy.  For  then  it  takes  its  place 
as  one  of  the  accredited  ways  of  working  of  natural  law, 
and  reports  of  its  occurrence  must  be  accepted  with  no 
more  evidence  than  would  be  sufficient  for  any  other  nat- 
ural phenomenon.  The  effect  is  mutual.  The  one  ac- 
cepted case  helps  to  validate  and  make  credible  all  the 
other  cases  which  seem  more  mysterious  and  weird,  and 
the  enormous  number  of  such  cases  on  record  enables  us 
to  feel  that  this  is  not  some  strange,  semi-miraculous 
thing  that  has  happened  to  some  one  but  it  is  a  legitimate 
part  of  the  natural  working  of  the  mind,  and  just  as  the 
"X-Eay,"  electricity  or  radium  was  really  in  existence 
and  operative  centuries  before  it  was  first  discovered,  so 
this  is  merely  a  new  discovery  of  facts  that  have  always 
existed. 

The  greatest  single  source  for  evidence  along  this  line 
is  found  in  the  proceedings  of  the  "  Society  for  Psychical 
Eesearch,"  founded  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  and 
with  branches  both  in  England  and  America.  The  work 
of  this  society,  since  it  has  often  to  do  with  occurrences 
which  we  have  long  been  accustomed  to  class  with  ''ghost 
stories,"  has  naturally  to  overcome  a  great  deal  of  scep- 
ticism, not  to  say  prejudice,  in  the  popular  mind.  But 
it  is  a  mistake  to  think  of  them  as  a  band  of  credulous  won- 
der seekers.  They  are  just  the  opposite.  All  the  leaders 
are  men  of  the  highest  acknowledged  scientific  attain- 
ments and  training.  Its  methods  are  severely  critical  and 
its  rules  extremely  strict,  far  more  strict  than  justice 
would  demand  were  there  less  scepticism  to  overcome. 

For  instance,  one  rule  is  that  no  medium  or  subject  that 


346  APPENDIX   B 

has  ever  been  detected  in  any  fraud  shall  thereafter  ever 
be  considered  at  all  by  the  society.  A  recent  case  is  the 
notorious  medium,  Eusapia  Paladino.  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  large  numbers  of  results  had  been  produced  by 
her  under  conditions  in  which  the  most  competent  ex- 
perts watching  the  case  declared  fraud  to  be  impossible, 
yet  when  recently  Professor  Munsterberg  in  Boston  once 
detected  her  attempting  to  make  use  of  fraud  to  produce 
some  result  she  was  completely  and  permanently  dropped 
from  investigation  by  the  society.  Now  the  occasional 
resort  to  fraud  is  not  necessarily  proof  that  at  other  times 
results  were  not  produced  without  fraud  and  by  purely 
psychical  means.  Indeed  under  the  circumstances  it  is 
not  at  all  strange  that  fraud  should  be  attempted  when 
the  genuine  psychical  means  did  not  readily  produce  the 
wished-for  results.  I  know  a  baby  that  has  a  whistle  and 
is  very  fond  of  whistling  on  it  and  letting  folks  see  that 
she  can  do  so.  But  when  for  any  reason  the  whistle  fails 
to  respond  readily  to  her  blowing  she  very  often  simulates 
with  her  mouth  the  sound  of  the  whistling.  For  all  that 
neither  her  parents  nor  disinterested  friends  feel  com- 
pelled to  think  that  she  does  not  at  other  times  really 
make  the  noise  with  the  whistle.  I  exjDress  no  opinion  at 
all  as  to  whether  Eusapia  Paladino's  performances  were 
or  were  not  all  fraudulent,  but  merely  as  a  matter  of  the 
laws  of  evidence  point  out  that  it  would  not  be  strange, 
even  if  true  results  had  often  been  produced  by  her  by 
purely  psychical  means,  if  in  some  instances  when  the 
desired  result  did  not  readily  appear  the  semi-conscious 
operator  should  attempt  to  produce  the  same  result  by 
other  means. 

And  yet  the  society  has  done  wisely  in  strictly  enforc- 
ing this  rule  and  dropping  every  subject  as  soon  as  any 
fraud  appeared.  For  it  wanted  all  its  findings  to  be  of 
the  highest  possible  grade.  The  result  of  this  extreme 
strictness  in  its  methods  is  that  anything  that  appears  in 
its  "  Proceedings"  with  its  endorsement  is  fully  entitled 
to  be  received  and  credited.  This  does  not  include,  of 
course,  the  theories  and  beliefs  of  all  its  members.  Some 
have  been  unjustly  inclined  to  distrust  the  society's  work 
because,  not  unnaturally,  many  adherents  of  the  religious 
cult  of  "spiritualism"  are  found  among  its  members. 


APPENDIX  B  347 

"Whether  or  not  we  accept  the  theories  and  deductions  of 
any  of  its  members,  it  is  only  the  facts  that  it  certifies 
that  we  are  interested  in,  and  in  that  line  it  is  a  thor- 
oughly credible  witness. 

The  common  reader,  who  will  find  the  proceedings  of 
the  "Society  for  Psychical  Research"  rather  tedious 
reading,  will  find  more  condensed  reports  of  much  of  its 
work,  as  well  as  much  other  pertinent  matter,  in  quite  a 
number  of  recent  books  and  magazine  articles.  One  will 
find  a  very  popular  presentation  and  discussion  of  the 
whole  subject  in  articles  by  Prof.  J.  H.  Hyslop  in  the 
Woman's  Rome  Companion  for  September  and  October, 
1905.  Professor  Hyslop  here  presents  and  discusses  quite 
a  number  of  cases,  attested  by  competent  witnesses,  which 
seem  to  give  convincing  proof  of  the  power  of  one  mind 
to  impress  its  thoughts  and  feelings  upon  another  mind 
at  a  distance,  without  physical  means. 

In  some  of  the  cases  he  refers  to,  persons  in  relations  of 
the  closest  sympathy  and  affection,  as  for  instance  hus- 
band and  wife,  when  one  of  them  was  affected  by  some 
intense  sensation,  even  at  a  considerable  distance,  the 
other  seemed  to  be  affected  by  some  similar  sensation. 
A  number  of  instances  of  this  kind  are  given. 

In  other  series  of  cases  it  is  more  definite  information 
that  seems  to  be  conveyed  in  this  strange  manner.  In  one 
case  a  woman  lying  sick  in  a  hospital  tells  that  a  brother 
who  was  a  pilot  was  dying  in  the  harbour,  and  it  was 
later  found  out  to  be  true.  In  another  a  girl  declares 
that  her  father  is  struck  by  lightning  and  killed,  and  it 
is  soon  after  found  to  be  true.  In  another  a  Mrs.  Lodge 
seems  to  see  and  read  while  on  a  journey  a  telegram  sent 
to  her,  but  which  her  husband  has  received,  and  she 
identifies  it  on  her  return.  In  another  case  a  Mrs.  Agnes 
Paquet  seems  to  see  her  brother  drowned  in  the  harbour 
at  Chicago,  and  soon  after  finds  that  it  is  true.  In  an- 
other a  little  girl,  Lillie  Spruit,  tells  her  mother  that  her 
father,  a  sea  captain,  has  been  shipwrecked,  and  describes 
quite  a  number  of  rather  peculiar  details,  all  of  which 
are  afterwards  found  to  be  accurate.  In  another  case  the 
commander  of  a  ship  sailing  in  the  Mediterranean  seems 
to  see  a  sort  of  vision  of  his  brother  being  murdered  some- 
where in  Europe,  and  sees  a  number  of  details  of  the 


348  APPENDIX  B 

road,  the  place,  the  circumstances  and  the  surroundings, 
with  all  of  which  he  was  so  impressed  that  he  wrote  it 
down  in  the  ship's  log  lor  the  day.  After  he  arrived  in 
port  he  found  out  that  the  murder  had  occurred  at  just 
that  time,  and  with  all  the  circumstances  which  he  had 
seen.  In  another  case  a  mother  sees  a  vision  of  her  hus- 
band and  son  drowned  in  a  fishing  boat  and  her  little  son 
also  at  the  same  time  seems  to  have  had  a  somewhat  sim- 
ilar vision,  and  it  was  soon  afterwards  found  to  be  true. 
In  another  case  both  a  father  and  son  have  at  about  the 
same  time  a  vision  of  the  boy's  grandfather  in  circum- 
stances that  are  soon  after  found  to  be  true. 

I  will  mention  two  other  cases  recounted  here  which  are 
a  little  more  complicated  and  remarkable.  A  Mr.  S.  E. 
Wilmot  was  on  a  voyage  returning  home,  and  the  ship  had 
experienced  a  severe  and  continued  storm.  One  night  dur- 
ing the  storm,  while  in  his  berth  in  his  stateroom,  he  had  a 
vision  or  dream  of  his  wife  coming  to  the  stateroom  door, 
and  seeing  some  one  else  in  the  room  she  hesitated  a  little, 
but  afterwards  came  over  to  his  berth  and  stooping  over 
kissed  him.  He  had  a  companion  in  the  same  room,  and 
next  morning  his  companion  asked  him  who  was  the 
woman  that  came  to  his  room  and  kissed  him,  and  related 
all  the  particulars  just  as  he  had  seen  it,  including  the 
fact  that  she  had  hesitated  a  little  before  entering.  When 
he  got  home  his  wife  told  him  of  a  strange  vision  or 
dream  that  she  had  had  a  certain  night,  which  corre- 
sponded with  the  very  night  in  which  he  and  his  compan- 
ion had  seen  the  woman.  She  said  that  she  seemed  to 
have  the  impression  of  his  being  in  trouble  and  had  gone 
to  him  to  the  stateroom  of  his  ship.  When  she  got  there 
she  saw  that  there  was  another  man  in  the  ujiper  berth  of 
the  room,  and  hesitated  about  going  in,  but  afterwards 
went  in  and  went  to  him  and  stooped  down  and  kissed 
him.  She  remembered  vividly  the  appearance  of  the 
room,  and  said  that  the  upper  berth  sat  back  farther  than 
the  lower  berth,  which  though  unusual  was  actually  true, 
for  the  room  was  in  the  extreme  stern  of  the  ship  where 
the  slant  of  the  stern  walls  of  the  ship  made  the  upper 
berth  stand  back  farther  than  the  lower. 

The  other  incident  is  still  more  remarkable.  A  ship 
was  sailing  on  a  smooth  sea,  the  captain  on  the  bridge, 


APPENDIX   B  349 

when  the  mate  below  looking  through  into  the  captain's 
room  thought  he  saw  a  man  at  the  captain's  table  writing. 
Going  in  he  saw  on  the  captain's  slate  the  words  written  : 
"Steer  to  the  northwest."  This  he  asked  the  captain 
about,  but  he  knew  nothing  about  it,  nor  did  any  one 
else  on  the  ship.  It  was  a  little  out  of  their  course,  but 
as  the  weather  was  very  favourable  they  decided  to  follow 
the  directions  and  see  what  would  occur.  After  sailing 
in  that  direction  a  few  hours  they  found  a  ship  in  great 
distress  and  were  able  to  rescue  all  on  board  from  death. 
After  they  were  on  board,  the  rescued  captain  told  them 
that  he  had  had  a  strange  experience.  A  mau  on  board 
had  had  a  trance  and  had  told  him  that  a  ship  would 
come  to  their  rescue  in  just  the  way  it  had.  When  the 
mate  saw  this  man  he  said  he  corresponded  exactly  to  the 
man  whom  he  had  seen  writing  on  the  slate  in  the  cap- 
tain's room.  Without  telling  any  one  he  turned  the  slate 
over  and  had  this  man  write  on  the  other  side  the  same 
words:  "  Steer  to  the  northwest,"  and  when  afterwards 
examined  the  handwriting  on  the  two  sides  of  the  slate 
were  pronounced  by  all  to  be  identical.  This  last  case 
seems  very  strange  and  complicated,  but  even  supposing 
there  might  have  come  to  be  some  embellishments  in  the 
telling,  there  were  so  many  witnesses  that  there  must 
have  been  some  foundation  of  strange  facts  in  it  that 
really  occurred. 

In  Harper^ s  Magazine^  August,  1909  ("Psychical  Ee- 
search"),  the  distinguished  scientist,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
gives  quite  an  extended  discussion  of  the  subject,  with 
numerous  instances.  With  regard  to  the  truth  of  telep- 
athy, he  says  (p.  374),  speaking  of  the  work  of  the 
"Society  for  Psychical  Eesearch,"  "The  first  fact  es- 
tablished by  the  society's  labour  was  the  reality  of  tel- 
epathy,— that  is  to  say,  of  the  apparently  direct  action 
of  one  mind  on  another  by  means  unknown  to  science. 
That  a  thought  or  image  or  impression  or  emotion  in 
the  mind  of  one  person  can  arouse  a  similar  impression 
in  the  mind  of  another  person  sufficiently  sympathetic 
and  sufficiently  at  leisure  to  attend  and  record  the  im- 
pression, is  now  proved."  And  again  (p.  376)  discuss- 
ing the  various  interpretations,  spiritistic  and  other- 
wise, that  are  made  of  these  various  strange  mediumistic 


350  APPENDIX   B 

and  apparition  experiences,  he  says  :  ' '  The  first  hypoth- 
esis that  must  be  made,  whenever  normal  explanations 
thoroughly  break  down,  is  that  telepathy  of  some  kind 
is  occurring  from  some  living  mind." 

H.  Addiugton  Bruce,  in  The  Outlook^  March  26, 
1910  ("Spirits  or  Telepathy"),  discusses  a  large  num- 
ber of  facts  that  are  put  forward  as  proof  of  the  activity 
of  disembodied  spirits.  He  is  inclined  to  think  that  all 
those  that  are  commonly  classed  as  physical  phenomena, 
such  as  "Table  tipping,"  "Slate  writing,"  "  Levita- 
tious"  and  the  like  are  not  sufficiently  free  from  the 
suspicion  of  fraud  to  have  weight  as  evidence.  Those 
caSi^'S  where  facts  seem  to  be  known  to  the  medium  or 
percipient  which  he  has  had  no  physical  means  of  find- 
ing out  about,  he  is  inclined  to  think  can  all  be  ac- 
counted for  by  telepathic  communication  from  the  minds 
of  living  persons,  which,  with  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  just 
quoted,  he  counts  as  the  first  hypothesis  that  must  first 
be  applied  in  such  cases. 

In  Current  Literature,  Volume  46,  p.  208  fif.,  Mr.  Bruce 
discusses  a  large  number  of  cases,  and  declares  that :  "It 
is  certain  that  telepathy  itself  is  an  established  fact." 
He  even  gives  a  number  of  instances  to  prove  that  a 
person  can  make  an  apparition  of  himself  or  of  some 
other  person  appear  to  some  person  at  a  distance.  He 
cited  the  case  of  Herr  Wiserman,  who  claimed  he  had 
this  power,  and  in  one  instance  made  good  his  claim  by 
making  the  apparition  of  a  certain  lady  long  dead  appear 

to  a  Lieutenant  N and  another  man  seated  in  their 

room  in  the  barracks,  as  a  test. 

In  The  Forum,  January,  1909  ("Thought  Transfer- 
ence"), Sir  Oliver  Lodge  also  discusses  the  question  with 
a  number  of  instances.  He  refers  to  series  of  experi- 
ments conducted  to  test  whether  the  mind  of  one  man 
may  be  influenced  by  the  sensations  and  mental  states  of 
another  mind  when  there  is  no  physical  connection  to 
convey  such  influence,  and  says  that  satisfactory  results 
have  been  obtained  pointing  to  the  reality  of  such  influ- 
ence. 

In  The  Catholic  World  for  1907-08,  there  is  quite  an 
extended  series  of  articles  by  H.  M.  Searl,  discussing  the 
whole  subject  and  recounting  a  large  number  of  instan- 


APPENDIX   B  351 

ces.  The  writer  takes  the  position  that  telepathy  is  a 
legitimate  explanation  to  be  adopted  wherever  it  will 
account  for  the  facts. 

Among  the  books  on  the  subject  I  may  mention  *'  The 
Unknown,"  by  Camille  Flamarion.  In  this  book  he  has 
collected  a  very  large  number  of  various  diiferent  classes 
of  instances  of  the  mind  acting  at  a  distance  without 
physical  means,  all  of  which  he  considers  sufficiently 
well  attested  to  be  worthy  of  credence.  In  Chapter  III 
he  has  collected  180  authenticated  reports  of  cases  where 
an  apparition  of  a  person  appeared  to  some  friend  at  the 
hour  of  his  death,  the  friend  being  at  a  distance,  and  in 
many  cases  having  no  knowledge  of  the  sickness  or  dan- 
ger of  the  person  concerned.  In  many  of  the  cases  the 
credibility  of  the  witnesses  seems  to  be  entirely  beyond 
question.  Many  circumstantial  details  are  given  in  most 
of  the  instances.  In  Chapter  VI  he  takes  up  the  sub- 
ject of  willing  a  person  at  a  distance  to  perform  pre- 
scribed acts,  and  of  mind  reading  at  a  distance.  Of 
both  these  he  gives  numerous  instances.  While  the  in- 
stances in  Chapter  III  must  necessarily  all  be  sponta- 
neous apparitions  merely  recorded  by  those  that  had 
experienced  them,  in  these  cases  it  was  mostly  experi- 
mental work,  where  the  conditions  could  largely  be  ar- 
ranged beforehand  and  all  possibility  of  fraud,  error  or 
illusion  largely  eliminated.  Such  cases  manifestly  would 
carry  the  greatest  weight  as  evidence.  In  Chapters  VII 
and  VIII  he  takes  up  "  Sleep  "  and  numerous  instances 
of  persons  in  sleep  having  dreams  or  visions  of  things  at 
a  distance,  which  were  afterwards  ascertained  to  have 
actually  occurred.  If  sleep  is  a  condition  of  the  same 
general  nature  as  that  produced  in  hypnotism,  and  if,  as 
we  shall  see  lat«r,  it  is  this  hypnotic  or  secondary  con- 
dition of  the  mind  that  is  most  susceptible  to  telepathy, 
there  would  be  significance  in  such  dreams  as  probably 
arising  from  telepathic  activity  of  the  mind.' 

Prof.  William  James,  in  "The  Will  to  Believe,"  dis- 
cusses a  number  of  phases  of  this  subject.  He  quotes 
from  Mr.  Edward  Gurney's  "  Phantasms  of  the  Living  " 
in  which  there  are  given  accounts  of  seven  hundred  cases 

'  See  also  "  Mysterious  Psychic  Forces"  by  the  same  author. 


352  APPENDIX  B 

of  apparitions  reported  and  investigated,  a  large  number 
of  which  were  "Viridical,"  that  is  to  say  some  actual 
calamity  had  occurred  at  a  distance  at  the  time  that 
the  apparition  appeared,  and  of  which  it  seemed  to  be 
a  reflection.  A  very  significant  thing  which  Professor 
James  discusses  and  in  which  he  assisted  was  what  was 
called  a  "  Census  of  Hallucinations,"  which  was  taken  a 
few  years  ago.  This  was  a  questionaire  sent  out  to  a 
very  large  number  of  persons  for  the  purpose  of  testing 
in  a  systematic  and  scientific  manner  just  how  much 
place  such  strange  apparitions  have  in  human  expe- 
rience. In  all  answers  were  received  from  about  25,000 
persons,  about  17,000  of  them  being  in  England  and 
about  7,000  in  America.  Special  care  was  taken  in 
sending  out  the  questions  to  avoid  specializing  and  to 
send  the  questions  impartially  to  all  classes  of  people, 
so  that  the  results  would  be  fairly  accurate  as  a  record 
of  the  comparative  frequency  with  which  men  in  general 
have  such  experiences. 

The  results  showed  that  about  one  in  ten  had  at  some 
time  in  their  lives  had  something  of  the  nature  of  an  ap- 
parition or  abnormal  vision  of  some  kind.  This  in  itself 
shows  that  such  experiences,  though  difficult  to  explain, 
are  not  strange  in  the  sense  of  being  unusual  or  rare. 
These  apparitions  were  of  various  kinds  and  of  various 
degrees  of  significance.  In  a  large  number  of  cases 
there  had  been  some  corresponding  distant  event  occur- 
ring at  the  time,  of  sufficient  resemblance  to  constitute 
at  least  a  noticeable  coincidence.  In  quite  a  number  of 
cases  a  death  had  occurred.  Of  these  cases,  sifting  out 
all  those  concerning  which  there  was  any  uncertainty, 
and  taking  only  those  that  were  beyond  suspicion  it  was 
found  that  in  one  case  out  of  forty-three  a  death  had 
occurred  on  the  same  day  that  the  apparition  appeared. 
By  the  "law  of  averages,"  taking  the  number  of  days 
in  the  average  human  life,  if  it  had  all  been  merely 
chance  coincidence,  there  would  have  been  about  one 
chance  in  10,000  that  a  person's  death  would  have  oc- 
curred on  the  given  day  on  which  the  person  had  an 
apparition  of  him,  whereas  in  this  test  it  was  found  to 
have  so  coincided  in  one  out  of  every  forty-three  cases. 
This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  there  was  some  causal 


APPENDIX   B  353 

counection  between  the  death  of  the  person  and  the 
appearance  of  the  apparition.  It  is  not  necessary,  of 
course,  to  conclude  that  the  disembodied  spirit  of  the 
dead  person  had  gone  out  and  appeared  to  the  other 
person.  The  commoner  explanation  would  be  that  in 
the  extreme  intensity  of  the  hour  of  approaching  death 
there  had  been  some  kind  of  telepathic  communication 
from  the  mind  of  the  dying  person  that  had  given  rise 
to  the  apparition  seen  by  the  mind  of  the  other  person. 

Professor  James  for  quite  a  while  superintended  and 
conducted  experiments  with  the  celebrated  Mrs.  Piper,  a 
woman  who  seems  to  show  the  most  remarkable  power 
of  revealing  things  that  she  has  no  physical  means  of 
finding  out  about.  For  a  great  many  years  now  she  has 
beon  in  the  hands  of  psychological  experts  and  under 
thair  inspection,  and  has  never  been  detected  in  any 
attempt  at  fraud,  and  indeed,  as  far  as  possible,  it  has 
been  made  impossible  for  any  fraud  to  be  used.  And 
yet  she  is  constantly  doing  the  most  remarkable  things. 
Persons  are  presented  to  her, — in  many  cases  entire 
strangers, — and  without  any  leading  remarks  or  sugges- 
tions from  them  she  will  relate  intimate  details  of  their 
past  history,  or  of  the  history  and  circumstances  of  their 
friends  and  relatives.  A  great  many  other  kinds  of 
feats  of  a  seemingly  supernormal  character  are  con- 
stantly being  performed  by  her.  Sometimes,  for  special 
tests,  she  will  tell  what  some  distant  friend  or  relative 
of  a  person  present  is  doing  at  the  given  time,  when  it 
is  not  known  to  any  one  present  what  that  person  is 
doing,  and  yet  on  later  inquiry  it  is  found  out  that  her 
description  agrees  in  a  remarkable  way  with  just  what 
the  person  was  doing  at  that  identical  time. 

Like  all  other  so-called  "Mediums,"  Mrs.  Piper  sup- 
poses that  some  disembodied  spirit  is  revealing  these 
things  to  her  and  speaking  through  her.  But  as  all  those 
who  are  familiar  with  the  phenomena  of  hypnotism  are 
aware,  the  fact  that  she  has  such  a  sensation  or  conviction 
is  not  in  itself  proof  that  there  is  any  such  disembodied 
spirit  concerned.  That  is  one  of  the  questions  the  psychol- 
ogists are  seeking  to  determine  by  the  experiments.  It 
would  be  evidence  for  it  if  the  things  she  revealed  were 
such  that  it  would  not  be  possible  for  her  own  mind,  by 


354  APPENDIX  B 

telepathy  or  some  similar  process,  to  find  them  out  from 
the  minds  of  living  persons.  Some  observers  have  been 
satisfied  that  they  could  not  have  been  so  found  out,  and 
must  have  been  communicated  by  disembodied  spirits. 
Others  have  not  been  convinced  that  such  was  the  case, 
and  have  taken  the  ground  that  it  would  be  possible  to 
account  for  them  all  through  telepathic  or  clairvoyant 
action  of  the  mind  of  Mrs.  Piper  or  of  other  living 
persons. 

While  there  was  this  difference  of  opinion  among  the  ob- 
servers as  to  the  interpretation,  as  to  the  reality  of  the  facts 
themselves  there  was  none.  Professor  James  himself  de- 
clares that  all  who  have  seen  these  tests  were  convinced  that 
some  kind  of  supernormal  powers  of  cognition  were  shown, 
and  to  his  mind  they  carried  decisive  conviction  that 
telepathy  was  a  demonstrated  fact.  As  he  further  sug- 
gests also,  this  one  case,  indisputably  proven,  establishes 
in  general  the  possibility  of  telepathy  as  a  proven  fact. 
And  if  it  is  once  fully  admitted  as  an  accepted  fact  all  the 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  mysterious  occurrences  so 
often  reported,  which  seem  to  imply  the  mind  acting  at  a 
distance,  would  cease  to  seem  miraculous  or  mysterious, 
and  would  all  fall  into  place  as  natural,  credible  facts  to 
be  believed  simply  on  the  appropriate  amount  of  testi- 
mony. We  have  simply  done  what  has  so  often  before 
been  done  by  science, — discovered  and  catalogued  a  new 
agency  of  very  wide  application. 

Another  very  interesting  book  is  "  Studies  in  Psychical 
Eesearch,"  by  Frank  Podmore.  One  of  the  most  suggest- 
ive parts  of  the  book  for  our  purpose  is  Chapter  VII 
where  he  takes  up  the  subject  of  ''  Experimental  Thought 
Transference."  While  such  experiments  as  those  de- 
scribed above  with  Mrs.  Piper  would  be  more  striking 
and  compelling  to  the  actual  observers,  yet  science  would 
perhaps  consider  even  more  convincing  some  of  the  ex- 
periments described  here,  because  though  less  spectacular 
they  are  more  analytically  and  technically  exact.  Of 
course  all  such  experiments,  arranged  and  conducted  by 
experts  under  carefully  guarded  circumstances  of  their 
own  constructing,  are  far  more  satisfactory  than  cases  oc- 
curring spontaneously  in  ordinary  life  where  the  evidence 
depends  upon  the  fallible  memory  of  the  subject  of  the  ex- 


APPENDIX   B  355 

perience  and  other  observers.  But  as  already  indicated, 
these  miuute,  techuical  experiments  establish  the  prin- 
ciples and  fact,  and  show  that  those  other  accounts  are 
worthy  of  credence. 

He  describes  a  number  of  series  of  different  kinds  of  ex- 
periments or  tests.  In  one  series  the  "Percipient"  or 
subject  of  the  test  was  blindfolded  and  securely  cut  off 
from  all  physical  means  of  perception,  and  then  made  to 
guess  the  character  of  various  things  that  the  experi- 
menters presented  for  the  purpose.  Now  this  is  a  feat 
that  is  very  commonly  performed  for  exhibition  purposes 
by  conjurers,  who  usually  have  a  confederate  to  com- 
municate by  some  secret  code  the  nature  of  the  object,  or 
have  some  other  prearranged  device.  But  in  such  a  test, 
entirely  gotten  up,  arranged  and  inspected  by  scientists 
of  acknowledged  standing  and  with  no  confederates  pres- 
ent to  communicate, — indeed  often  with  one  of  the 
scientific  experimenters  himself  acting  as  percipient, — all 
possibility  of  any  such  fraud  is  entirely  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

Various  series  or  kinds  of  things  were  presented  to  be 
guessed.  In  one  series  objects  of  various  kinds  were  used, 
in  another  playing  cards  taken  at  random  from  a  pack,  in 
another  numbers  of  two  figures,  in  another  shades  of 
colour,  and  the  like.  It  is  easy  to  calculate  by  the  "Law 
of  Averages"  what  chance  there  would  be  of  a  correct 
guess  being  made  entirely  by  chance.  For  instance,  if 
numbers  of  two  figures  were  guessed,  since  there  are  just 
ninety  such  numbers,  from  ten  to  ninety-nine,  it  is  plain 
that  there  would  be  just  one  chance  in  ninety  of  a  correct 
guess  being  made,  by  cbance  alone.  In  all  these  tests  it 
was  found  that  the  proportion  of  correct  guesses  was  very 
much  greater  than  the  ' '  Law  of  Averages ' '  indicated  as 
probable  by  chance.  This  would  indicate  that  the  guesses 
had  not  been  made  entirely  by  chance,  but  in  some  way 
the  mind  of  the  percipient  had  been  inflnenced  by  the 
thing  presented.  As,  however,  all  possibility  of  his  get- 
ting any  perception  of  it  by  any  physical  means  was  en- 
tirely cut  off,  his  mind  must  in  some  way  have  gained  the 
perception  or  impression  of  it  without  physical  means. 
His  mind  must  have  had,  in  some  as  yet  unknown  way, 
the  power  of  directly  without  physical  means  reaching 


356  APPENDIX   B 

out  and  seeing  the  object,  or  else  of  receiving  intelligence 
of  it  without  physical  means  from  the  minds  of  some  of 
the  experimenters  who  did  see  it.  That  is  to  say,  using 
the  terms  commonly  employed,  it  must  have  had  the 
power  of  either  clairvoj^ance  or  telepathy.  In  some 
similar  tests  described  by  Dr.  Thomson  J.  Hudson,  it  was 
found  that  when  a  card  was  the  object  to  be  guessed,  and 
neither  the  experimenter  nor  any  one  else  in  the  room 
knew  what  the  card  was  no  correct  guesses  were  made, 
but  when  some  one  knew  what  the  card  was  a  large  pro- 
portion of  correct  guesses  were  made,  thus  indicating  that 
in  that  case  it  was  telepathy  that  was  exhibited. 

In  another  series  of  tests,  in  which  the  conductor  was 
Mr.  H.  G.  Rawson,  one  person  was  made  to  draw  some 
figure  or  geometrical  shape,  and  another  person,  sitting  at 
some  distance  and  with  no  physical  means  of  perceiving 
what  was  drawn,  was  also  made  to  draw  whatever  was 
impressed  upon  her  mind.  Some  very  striking  resem- 
blances were  produced  in  this  way.  In  another  case  Mrs. 
Verrall,  herself  an  able  investigator,  experimented  with 
her  nine-year-old  child.  The  child  was  made  to  think 
intently  of  some  object  or  scene  and  the  mother  drew 
whatever  was  impressed  upon  her  mind  and  afterwards 
found  out  from  the  child  what  she  had  been  thinking 
about.  Some  remarkable  resemblances  were  obtained  in 
this  way  also. 

In  other  tests  it  was  found  possible  to  produce  similar 
results  by  persons  far  distant  from  each  other,  even  in 
different  countries.     Mr.  Podmore  mentions  the  case  of 

an  experiment  by  Rev.  A.  Glasdon  and  a  Mrs.  M , 

one  being  in  Switzerland  and  the  other  in  Italy.  I  may 
also  speak  of  some  tests  described  by  H.  Addington  Bruce 
in  an  article  on  "Spirits  or  Telepathy.'"  These  were 
carried  on  to  show  by  what  is  called  "  Cross  Correspond- 
ence "  the  presence  of  spiritistic  activity.  The  spirit  was 
supposed  to  suggest  an  object  or  shape  to  one  of  the  in- 
vestigators in  one  placo,  and  the  other  in  a  distant  place, 
also  by  the  direction  of  this  spirit's  control,  was  to  make 
a  drawing  of  what  was  impressed  on  her  mind.  Some 
suggestive    resemblances  were    produced    in  that  way, 

»  The  Outlook,  March  26,  1910. 


APPENDIX  B  357 

though  it  is  not  plain  why  it  would  be  more  indicative  of 
the  work  of  a  discarnate  spirit  than  of  telepathic  connec- 
tion between  the  minds  of  the  two  percipients. 

Mr.  Podmore  in  this  connection  recounted  the  case  of 
what  was  at  first  supposed  to  be  a  very  remarkable 
mathematical  infant  prodigy.  When  the  child's  mother 
gave  him  the  most  intricate  and  difBcult  problems  to 
solve  he  would  give  the  answer  correctly  almost  as  soon 
as  she  had  finished  giving  the  problem.  It  was  later 
noticed,  however,  that  in  all  these  cases  the  mother  knew 
the  answer  to  the  problem  when  she  gave  it  to  the  child  to 
solve.  Afterwards  when  the  child  was  tried  with  problems 
of  which  the  mother  did  not  know  the  answer  it  was 
found  that  he  could  do  nothing  with  them.  It  thus 
seemed  that  the  child  was  able  in  some  way  to  read  the 
mother's  mind  and  get  the  answer  there  and  then  give  it 
as  though  he  had  solved  the  problem. 

One  very  important  fact  is  brought  out  by  Mr.  Pod- 
more  that  is  also  referred  to  by  almost  all  experimenters 
in  this  line  (p.  214).  "  The  most  fruitful  and  best  estab- 
lished results  (of  telepathy)  have  been  obtained /rom  en- 
tranced percipients.^^  He  gives  an  account  of  some  spe- 
cially significant  results  that  were  obtained  by  experiments 
with  hypnotized  persons.  In  one  series  of  tests  the  per- 
cipient was  hypnotized  and  made  to  guess  numbers  of  two 
figures  from  ten  to  ninety-nine.  Out  of  644  trials  117 
were  guessed  correctly.  As  by  the  law  of  averages  there 
would  be  but  one  chance  in  ninety  of  a  correct  guess  this 
would  indicate  the  probability  of  less  than  eight  correct 
guesses  if  the  results  had  been  all  produced  by  chance, 
whereas  the  results  showed  109  more  or  fifteen  times  as 
many  as  could  be  accounted  for  by  chance. 

Another  series  of  tests  was  made  with  the  percipient 
or  person  who  was  to  guess,  in  an  entirely  separate  apart- 
ment and  entirely  isolated  and  separated  by  a  wall  from 
the  person  who  selected  the  numbers,  to  make  it  specially 
certain  that  there  should  be  no  communication,  conscious 
or  unconscious,  between  them.  Three  different  positions 
were  tried.  In  one  case  the  percipient  was  in  an  upper 
apartment  over  a  mason  work  arch  and  the  other  person 
or  "agent"  below  the  arch.  In  the  next  trial  the  posi- 
tions were  just  reversed,  the  "agent"  above  and  the  per- 


358  APPENDIX   B 

cipieut  below.  In  the  third  case  they  were  in  different 
apartments,  one  being  in  the  room  and  the  other  out  in 
the  hall  or  passage.  In  all  252  tests  were  made,  numbers 
with  two  figures  being  used  to  guess.  In  148  tests  the 
persons  were  in  what  we  may  call  position  (1)  with  the 
percipient  above  the  masonry  arch  and  the  agent  below. 
In  thirty-three  cases  they  were  in  position  (2)  with  the 
percipient  below  and  the  agent  above,  and  in  seventy-one 
cases  they  were  in  position  (3)  in  separate  rooms.  Ac- 
count was  taken  of  five  classes,  (a)  those  that  were 
guessed  completely  right,  (&)  those  that  were  guessed 
with  the  correct  figures  but  in  the  reverse  order,  as  for 
instance  forty-seven  instead  of  seventy-four,  (c)  those  in 
which  the  first  of  the  two  figures  was  guessed  correctly 
and  the  second  wrong,  (d)  those  in  which  the  second  fig- 
ure was  guessed  correctly  and  the  first  wrong  and  ( e)  those 
in  which  the  guess  was  wholly  wrong.  I  give  below  the 
result  in  tabulated  form  : 

Position  {a)         {b)         {c)         {d)         (e)         Total 


(I)  - 

-       20 

5 

55 

II 

57 

148 

(2)       - 

O 

o 

7 

4 

22 

32, 

(3)     - 

-       7 

3 

23 

8 

30 

71 

Total       27  8  85         23         109  252 

No  importance  need  attach  to  the  difference  of  result  in 
different  positions  as  it  was  doubtless  due  to  accidental 
causes,  such  as  greater  fatigue  and  the  like.  But  the  sig- 
nificant fact  is  that  in  all  cases  results  were  shown  very 
far  in  excess  of  what  could  be  produced  by  mere  chance. 
More  than  one  out  of  ten  were  guessed  completely  right 
while  116  more  or  nearly  half  had  some  approximate 
correctness,  and  only  109  or  less  than  half  were  guessed 
entirely  wrong. 

Another  book  by  the  same  author,  Mr.  Frank  Pod- 
more,  ''Apparitions  and  Thought  Transference,"  also 
contains  many  instances  and  discussions  bearing  on  this 
subject. 

A  book  by  R.  Osgood  Mason,  "Telepathy  and  the 
Subliminal  Self,"  beside  some  other  phases  of  the  activity 


APPENDIX  B  359 

of  the  siibcoDScious  mind  also  gives  instances  and  dis- 
cusses this  subject  of  telepathy.  He  accepts  telepathy 
as  a  valid  explanation  to  be  first  used  wherever  physical 
causes  cannot  account  for  any  occurrence,  and  seems  to 
make  especial  use  of  Mr.  Meyers'  conception  of  a  "  Sub- 
liminal iSelf "  or  an  extension  of  our  self  or  spirit  far  be- 
yond the  measure  and  limit  of  what  is  employed  by  and 
contained  in  our  bodily  activities. 

Another  book  by  Mr.  Frank  Podmore  is  "Modern 
Spiritualism  "  in  two  large  volumes.  He  discusses  the 
whole  range  of  those  supernormal  experiences  which  are 
commonly  presented  by  the  advocates  of  the  religious 
cult  of  spiritualism  as  indicating  the  activity  and  revela- 
tions of  discarnate  spirits.  His  position  seems  to  be  that 
as  far  as  these  are  genuine  they  can  all  be  accounted  for 
by  the  action  of  clairvoyance  and  telepathy  in  the  minds 
of  living  persons.  In  Chapters  IX  and  X,  Volume  I  and 
Chapter  VIII,  Volume  II,  he  gives  quite  a  number  of  in- 
teresting and  significant  cases  of  telepathy,  clairvoyance 
and  kindred  experiences.^ 

Mr.  H.  Addingtou  Bruce  in  ' '  The  Eiddle  of  Person- 
ality "  gives  quite  a  discussion  of  the  character  and  work 
of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  He  is  inclined  to 
find  the  explanation  of  all  the  many  supernormal  psy- 
chical experiences,  frequently  reported,  in  telepathy  and 
clairvoyance  rather  than  in  the  activity  of  discarnate 
spirits.  He  thinks  that  the  trend  towards  spiritualism 
and  other  extreme  theories  by  Mr.  F.  W.  Meyers  and 
others  of  the  society's  earnest  workers  has  called  forth  an 
unfortunate  amount  of  adverse  criticism  and  tended  to 
obscure  the  very  great  amount  of  valid  and  valuable  work 
that  has  been  done  by  them. 

"Personality  and  its  Survival  after  Death"  by  Mr. 
F.  W.  Meyers  contains  a  large  amount  of  instructive  ma- 
terial bearing  on  our  subject.  Quite  a  large  number 
of  interesting  cases  are  cited,  especially  in  Chapters  IV 
and  VI.  As  indicated  above,  Mr.  Meyers  is  a  believer 
in  the  communication  of  disembodied  spirits  with  living 
men,  and  presents  this  material  in  this  book  as  support- 
ing that  position.     Whether  we  may  agree  with  him  that 

*  See  also  "  After  Death  What,"  Lombroso. 


360  APPENDIX  B 

it  indicates  the  activity  of  discarnate  spirits,  or  take  the 
alternate  view  that  it  can  all  be  accounted  for  by  clair- 
voyance and  telepathy  by  the  minds  of  living  persons, 
the  material  which  he  presents  is  well  worthy  of  credence, 
and  in  either  case  it  shows  the  mind  to  be  capable  of  re- 
ceiving impressions  other  than  those  that  it  receives  by 
physical  means. 

Prof.  J.  H.  Hyslop,  in  ''Science  and  a  Future  Life" 
also,  cautiously  and  with  full  recognition  of  the  weight  of 
the  counter-claims  of  those  who  take  the  opposite  view, 
sees  proof  that  satisfies  him  of  the  fact  of  communication 
between  departed  spirits  and  the  living.  While  giving 
considerable  other  material  and  instances  drawn  from 
other  sources,  most  of  the  book  is  taken  up  with  the  re- 
sults of  the  experiments  with  Mrs.  Piper  to  which  refer- 
ence has  already  been  made. 

Dr.  Thomson  Jay  Hudson  has  written  a  number  of 
books  dealing  more  or  less  with  this  subject,  such  as 
■*'  The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,"  ''  A  Scientific  Dem- 
onstration of  the  Future  Life, "  "  The  Evolution  of  a  Soul, ' ' 
etc.  In  **  The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena"  he  insists  on 
the  power  of  the  mind  to  act  without  j^hysical  means  at  a 
distance,  both  in  the  manner  implied  in  telepathy  and 
also  in  an  effective  way,  that  might  have  influence  for  in- 
stance in  the  curing  of  diseases,  as  claimed  in  the  so- 
called  "  Absent  treatments  "  of  Christian  Science. 

In  "The  Evolution  of  a  Soul,"  Chapter  VI,  he  pro- 
poses to  give  the  reasons  which  have  led  him  to  believe 
in  the  fact  of  telepathy.  In  the  first  place  he  says  in 
brief  the  reason  is  his  tendency  to  believe  in  human  testi- 
mony. "  When  thousands  of  reputable  men  and  women 
declare  that  they  have  experienced  the  phenomenon  and 
witnessed  it  in  others,  and  when  hundreds  of  men  whose 
reputation  for  probity  and  scientific  attainment  is  inter- 
national, aver  that  they  have  experimentally  reproduced 
the  phenomena  of  telepathy,  I  confess  that  I  am  very 
much  inclined  to  believe  what  they  say"  (p.  181). 

And  yet  like  most  other  men  of  science  who  prefer  to 
base  their  beliefs  on  knowledge  obtained  at  first  hand,  he 
started  out  to  test  the  matter  for  himself  by  a  number  of 
series  of  experiments  covering  all  the  varions  phases  of 
the  subject.     His  method  was  to  treat  with  the  several 


APPENDIX  B  361 

classes  of  pbenomeDa.  As  soon  as  he  had  sufficiently 
demonstrated  by  his  experiments  that  a  given  class  of 
phenomena  could  be  produced  without  fraud  he  dropped 
that  and  took  up  some  other  class.  Among  others  he 
tried  the  experiment  of  having  a  thoroughly  blindfolded 
person  guess  the  character  of  objects,  playing  cards  and 
the  like  that  were  presented.  He  also  had  the  same 
experiment  tried  with  himself  as  the  percipient,  playing 
cards  being  used  in  one  case.  He  was  thoroughly  bliud- 
folded  and  for  a  long  time  tried  in  vain  to  become  som- 
nolent and  get  some  distinct  impression.  As  soon  as  he 
tried  to  turn  his  attention  to  any  impression  it  would 
rouse  him  and  the  impression  vanish.  At  last  by  ex- 
treme effort  of  concentration  he  managed  to  keep  one 
impression  long  enough  to  see  what  it  was.  It  was  not  a 
card  but  a  row  of  real  diamonds,  and  he  counted  that 
there  were  just  ten  of  them.  Of  course  he  decided  on 
the  "ten  of  diamonds,"  which  was  in  fact  the  card  which 
had  been  chosen.  In  all  he  made  five  trials  and  only 
made  one  mistake  of  calling  the  "five  of  clubs"  instead 
of  the  "five  of  spades."  This  was  by  an  inexcusable 
blunder,  for  he  saw  them  in  his  impression  partly  im- 
bedded in  the  ground,  and  as  the  upper  part  of  the  two 
spots  look  much  alike  he  called  them  clubs,  instead  of 
following  the  hint  of  their  being  in  the  ground  to  call 
them  spades.  A  number  of  others  tried  the  same  experi- 
ment with  a  sufficient  number  of  successes  to  prove  the 
presence  of  telepathic  influence,  and  since  then  he  had 
seen  hundreds  of  similar  experiments  with  the  same 
results. 

He  mentions  one  experiment  he  tried  of  a  very 
peculiar  and  interesting  character.  A  public  exhibition 
of  telepathy  was  being  given  in  the  town  by  a  man  and 
his  daughter.  Blank  slips  of  paper  were  distributed  to 
persons  in  the  audience,  and  they  were  to  write  some- 
thing on  them,  sign  it  and  put  it  in  their  own  pockets. 
The  young  lady  was  then  hypnotized  and  proceeded  to 
call  the  names  signed  to  the  messages  and  read  what  was 
on  the  paper  in  the  different  persons'  pockets.  A  friend 
was  present  the  first  night  and  told  Dr.  Hudson  wliat 
was  done.  He  decided  to  make  a  very  peculiar  test.  He 
had  his  friend  go  to  the  performance  the  next  night,  and 


362  APPENDIX  B 

arranged  with  him  that  he  would  stay  at  home  and  fix 
some  playing  card  in  his  mind  which  he  would  try  to 
communicate  to  or  through  him  by  telepathy.  The 
friend  then  at  the  performauce  was  to  write  on  his  slip 
of  paper,  * '  A  friend  has  sent  me  by  telepathy  the  name 
of  a  playing  card.  Please  tell  me  what  it  is,"  and  sign 
his  name  ;  the  friend  however  did  not  know  w  hat  card 
was  chosen  but  the  supposition  was  that  Dr.  Hudson  was 
to  communicate  it  by  telepathy  to  his  subconscious  mind, 
and  from  there  the  operator  was  to  receive  it  and  reveal 
it.  It  was  very  late  in  the  performance  before  the  operator 
got  to  this  case,  and  she  complained  of  being  very  tired. 
Yet  she  called  the  name  and  read  the  message  on  the 
paper  correctly,  and  said  she  thought  the  card  was  red 
and  was  diamonds,  but  could  not  tell  distinctly  which 
one.  The  operator  promised  to  hypnotize  her  again  and 
send  the  answer  by  mail.  He  did  so  and  said  she  was 
still  tired  and  had  difficulty  in  seeing  clearly  but  thought 
it  was  the  nine  of  diamonds.  In  reality  the  card  chosen 
was  the  ten  of  diamonds. 

I  will  give  as  the  last  reference  a  little  book  which 
gives  an  account  of  the  experiences  of  the  Rev.  C.  B. 
Sanders  called  "The  Sleeping  Preacher,"  not  that  the 
case  is  any  more  strange  or  important  than  many  others, 
but  because  several  of  my  own  intimate  friends  per- 
sonally knew  this  man  and  his  strange  case,  and  many  of 
the  witnesses  whose  names  are  subscribed  to  the  reports 
that  are  given.  He  was  a  very  earnest,  successful  and 
respected  minister  in  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian 
Church,  whose  character  was  beyond  suspicion  in  every 
respect  and  his  abilities  above  the  average.  For  about 
twenty  years  he  had  from  time  to  time  strange  spells  in 
which  he  seemed  to  go  into  a  secondary  or  subconscious 
state  with  wonderful  clairvoyant  or  telepathic  powers 
and  with  the  general  heightening  of  his  mental  faculties 
often  characteristic  of  the  hypnotic  state.  These  spells 
were  accompanied  with  great  pain,  and  with  an  opening 
of  the  sutures  of  his  skull  and  other  distressing  symp- 
toms. They  were  a  great  grief  and  trial  to  him  in  other 
ways,  as  he  thought  they  would  subject  him  to  suspicion. 

Although  these  strange  experiences  were  constantly 
occurring  for  nearly  twenty-two  years,  from  1854  to  1876, 


APPENDIX  B  363 

Mr.  Sauders  Lad  the  greatest  aversion  to  publicity,  aud 
succeeded  iu  preventing  anything  being  published  about 
them  till  in  the  year  1875,  September  15th  an  aiticle  was 
published  iu  the  Nashville  American  and  November  26th 
one  in  the  Cincinnati  Tribune,  both  of  which  were  quite 
extensively  copied  by  the  press.  Seeing  that  the  case 
was  already  being  made  public,  and  in  unsatisfactory 
form,  he  rccxuested  a  friend,  the  Rev.  G.  W.  Mitchel  of 
Atheus,  Ala.,  to  prepare  and  publish  an  authentic  and 
accurate  account  of  the  facts,  which  he  did  in  a  small 
volume  published  in  September,  1876,  about  four  months 
after  the  time  that  these  strange  experiences  of  Mr.  San- 
ders' ceased. 

The  book  is  made  up  almost  entirely  of  signed  state- 
ments of  various  persons  who  had  witnessed  aud  testified 
to  some  of  the  remarkable  things  done  by  Mr.  Sanders 
when  in  the  peculiar  trance  condition.  In  all  the  testi- 
mony of  sixty-nine  persons  is  recorded  in  the  book. 
They  are  all  persons  of  irreproachable  character  and 
intelligence,  many  of  them  of  the  highest  standing, — 
clergymen,  lawyers,  doctors,  men  and  women  of  the 
leading  families  in  the  communities  concerned.  The 
book  is  entitled,  "X-|-Y=Z  or  The  Sleeping  Preacher," 
the  peculiar  formula  being  the  strange  signature  which  he 
would  always  sign  to  any  communication  written  while 
in  the  trance  state. 

It  would  be  impossible  in  the  limits  here  to  give  any 
full  account  of  the  things  done  by  the  Rev.  C.  B.  Sanders 
when  in  this  state.  The  first  time  that  he  was  known  to 
show  this  strange  power  was  in  1854  when  he  was  board- 
ing with  a  family  by  the  name  of  Harlow  aud  attending 
school  in  Elkton,  Tennessee.  He  announced  one  after- 
noon that  there  would  be  a  funeral  there  before  to- 
morrow evening  though  not  any  member  of  the  family. 
Within  an  hour  a  gentleman  came  and  requested  permis- 
sion to  bury  a  corpse  in  their  private  cemetery,  which 
was  granted.  The  death  occurred  three  miles  away,  and 
no  one  there  had  even  heard  of  it.  Later  on  quite  a 
number  of  occasions  he  reported  the  death  of  persons  at 
a  great  distance  at  the  very  hour  that  the  death  took 
place,  often  without  any  previous  knowledge  of  their 
sickness.     Other  things  were  also  reported  in  the  same 


364  APPENDIX  B 

way  with  tlie  same  accuracy  aud  correspondeuce  of  time, 
for  iustaiice  in  one  case  he  reported  a  fire  that  had 
broken  out  in  a  distant  village,  giving  exact  details  of  the 
buildings  that  were  burning,  all  of  which  was  later  veri- 
fied. Quite  a  number  of  times  he  located  lost  money, 
and  went  directly  to  the  place,  sometimes  a  long  distance 
away,  and  picked  it  up.  In  one  case  he  reported  to 
friends  a  private  conference  and  conversation  they  had 
held  shortly  before  in  a  distant  city.  He  often  reported 
the  substance  of  sermons  which  were  being  preached  by 
his  brother  ministers  at  some  distant  place.  He  often 
told  persons  the  contents  of  letters  they  had  received  or 
written  without  having  seen  them.  He  diagnosed  ac- 
curately the  diseases  of  persons  at  a  distance  whom  he 
had  not  seen.  These  and  numbers  of  other  equally 
strange  aud  supernormal  things  were  constantly  being 
done  through  a  period  of  over  twenty  years,  and  wit- 
nessed to  in  signed  statements  by  scores  of  persons  of  the 
highest  character  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Sanders. 

Now  while  it  is  conceivably  possible  in  almost  any  of 
these  instances  to  imagine  a  way  in  which  some  such  thing 
could  be  done  by  fraud  or  legerdemain,  yet  on  the  other 
hand  must  be  considered  the  perfectly  irreproachable 
character  of  Mr.  Sanders,  which  is  abundantly  witnessed 
to,  he  having  spent  all  his  life  in  a  comparatively  limited 
region,  and  was  still  living  there  at  my  last  information. 
In  the  second  place  no  adequate  motive  could  be  assigned, 
as  the  occurrence  of  these  things  was  a  great  embarrass- 
ment and  distress  to  him,  and  he  tried,  and  for  twenty 
years  successfully,  to  keep  them  from  wide  publicity. 
Moreover  his  conduct  when  in  this  trance  state  was  per- 
fectly irreproachable,  and  some  of  his  ablest  and  most 
fruitful  religious  work  was  done  in  that  state.  In  the 
third  place  as  we  have  already  seen  above  many  able  in- 
vestigators have  fully  satisfied  themselves,  by  carefully 
conducted  psychical  laboratory  experiments,  that  the 
human  mind  does  possess  powers  adequate  and  suited  to 
produce  all  these  different  kinds  of  results  which  Mr. 
Sanders  is  reported  to  have  experienced. 

Many  of  the  witnesses  and  observers  were,  before 
actually  seeing  the  phenomena,  quite  sceptical.     Such 


APPENDIX   B  365 

things  were  directly  contrary  to  all  the  religions  as  well  as 
scientific  opinions  of  the  community.  Some  of  tbe  wit- 
nesses were  distinctly  critical  and  careful  in  testing  what 
they  saw.  One  witness,  the  Rev%  M.  B.  DeWitt,  says  that 
while  he  had  seen  many  things  that  were  satisfactory  to 
his  own  mind  and  fally  sufficient  to  convince  any  one, 
yet  he  kept  constantly  looking  out  for  some  incident  that 
would  be  entirely  incapable  of  a  natural  explanation  and 
so  a  perfect  demonstration  of  the  possession  of  special 
powers.  He  said  he  was  satisfied  that  two  were  of  that 
fully  demonstrating  character.  One  of  these  was  when  he 
had  sent  a  letter  to  B>ev.  G.  W.  Mitchell  (the  author  of 
the  book),  and  before  it  had  been  received,  Mr.  Sanders 
had  seen  Mr.  Mitchell  and  told  him  all  the  contents  of 
the  letter,  even  to  minute  particulars.  The  other  was  a 
little  trivial  incident,  but  for  that  reason,  and  by  its  char- 
acter, the  more  convincing. 

Rev.  Mr.  Sanders  was  confined  to  his  bed  with  a  dis- 
located thigh,  in  the  home  of  Mr.  John  W.  Pruit  of 
Meridianville,  Ala.,  and  Eev.  Mr.  DeWitt  was  living 
about  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  village.  He  started  one 
day  to  take  to  Mr.  Sanders  a  bowl  of  custard  which  his 
wife  had  made  for  him,  and  also  had  in  his  other  hand  a 
sack  of  peas.  He  had  to  cross  a  rail  fence  on  the  way, 
and  as  it  was  quite  unsteady,  and  both  his  hands  were 
full,  he  got  himself  into  a  very  precarious,  and  doubtless 
also  very  ludicrous  position  before  he  got  safely  over. 
This  fence  was  on  the  other  side  of  a  wooded  hill  and  over 
half  a  mile  distant  from  the  house  where  Mr.  Sanders  was 
lying,  and  entirely  beyond  all  possibility  of  sight.  He 
was  only  about  ten  minutes  in  reaching  the  house,  having 
stopped  only  once  to  speak  to  a  man  for  a  minute  by  the 
way.  As  soon  as  he  came  in  and  shook  hands,  and  with- 
out anything  having  been  said  on  the  subject,  Mr. 
Sanders  began  to  laugh  heartily  and  to  chafe  him  on  the 
ludicrous  spectacle  he  presented  and  the  hard  time  he 
had  crossing  the  fence.  In  a  signed  statement  which  is 
also  given,  Mr.  J.  W.  Pruit  also  certifies  that  he  was 
with  Mr.  Sanders  in  the  room  for  some  time  before  Mr. 
DeWitt  arrived  and  he  had  had  no  communications  from 
any  person,  but  about  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  before  his 
arrival,  apparently  just  at  the  moment  when  Mr.  DeWitt 


366  APPENDIX  B 

was  on  the  fence,  Mr.  Sanders  being  in  his  trance  condi- 
tion at  the  time  had  suddenly  burst  out  laughing  and 
explained  that  he  was  laughing  at  Mr.  DeWitt  who  "  was 
having  a  hard  scuffle  to  keep  from  falling  off  the  fence." 

This  is  but  a  sample  however  of  scores  and  hundreds  of 
similar  cases  of  supernormal  knowledge,  many  of  which 
were  of  equally  convincing  character.  On  one  occasion 
Dr.  W.  T.  Thach  after  treating  a  patient  came  to  the  house 
in  the  village  about  two  and  a  half  miles  away,  where  Mr. 
Sanders  was  staying  at  the  home  of  Mr.  J.  W.  Wood- 
roof  who  certifies  to  the  report.  Mr.  Woodroof  asked 
Dr.  Thach  about  the  patient  and  Dr.  Thach  said  the  case 
was  critical,  and  then  turned  and  asked  Mr.  Sanders,  who 
was  in  one  of  his  trances  at  the  time,  how  the  sick  man 
was  doing.  Mr.  Sanders  answered  that  he  was  no  worse 
than  when  he  left,  but  that  his  wife  had  made  a  mistake 
in  giving  him  the  medicine,  two  powders  of  different 
character  having  been  left,  and  she  had  given  the  wrong 
one  first,  but  he  added  that  he  thought  it  would  do  no 
harm.  On  being  asked  he  told  the  composition  of  each  of 
the  powders.  All  he  said  was  entirely  correct,  and  on 
calling  the  next  morning  the  doctor  found  the  wife  quite 
anxious  because  she  had  given  the  wrong  powder  first 
and  she  had  been  on  the  point  of  sending  for  him,  but 
found  no  unfavourable  results  to  follow,  so  did  not. 

Mr.  Sanders  when  in  his  trance  state  used  to  make 
memoranda  in  a  book  of  many  things  which  he  saw  and 
of  which  he  had  no  recollection  when  he  came  out  of  the 
state.  On  one  occasion  a  deranged  woman  had  escaped 
from  her  home  about  seven  miles  from  where  Mr. 
Sanders  was  staying.  After  her  friends  had  searched  for 
some  time  and  found  no  information  of  her  one  of  them 
came  to  the  house  where  he  was  staying.  On  looking 
over  his  book  he  found  a  memorandum  of  a  deranged 
woman  having  been  at  a  certain  house  at  a  certain  hour, 
and  said  that  by  going  there  they  could  get  track  of  her. 
They  did  so  and  got  on  track  of  her  and  later  found  her. 
The  following  night  in  his  trance  state  Mr,  Sanders  re- 
ported that  the  woman  was  found,  and  next  morning  the 
report  was  found  to  be  true.  This  was  certified  to  by 
Captain  M.  B.  Hampton,  a  member  of  the  Alabama  legis- 
lature, at  whose  house  Mr.  Sanders  was  staying  at  the 


APPENDIX   B  367 

time.  Captain  Hampton  also  relates  a  number  of  other 
equally  significant  incidents. 

All  the  above  literature  has  been  cited  and  incidents 
quoted  to  show  that  it  is  not  mere  credulity  and  supersti- 
tion to  imagine  that  the  human  mind  can  get  information 
and  receive  messages  from  other  minds  directly  without 
the  use  of  physical  means.  If  it  be  asked,  Why  then 
do  not  more  men  or  all  men  also  have  this  power  1  Why 
should  certain  obscure  persons  exhibit  such  a  great 
faculty  in  that  sphere  while  other  minds,  even  of  highly 
trained  psychologists,  seem  to  exhibit  none  at  all?  Or 
again,  in  these  experiments  in  thought  transference,  why 
should  some  experimenters  get  no  satisfactory  results 
from  the  same  kind  of  experiments  from  which  others 
claim  to  get  such  conclusive  demonstration  of  telepathic 
activity  ? 

The  answer  is  very  obvious  and  lies  in  the  fact  that  in 
all  its  faculties  and  powers  there  is  extreme  variety  in  the 
capacities  of  different  human  minds.  Also  in  the  fact 
that  telepathic  activity  is  confessedly  a  difficult  and 
delicate  operation.  Take,  for  instance,  the  experiment 
of  guessing  blindfolded  an  object  upon  which  other  per- 
sons present  are  concentrating  their  minds.  Any  or- 
dinarily sceptical  investigator  on  conscientiously  trying 
this  experiment  and  making  an  entire  failure  and  then 
carefully  trying  it  again  and  making  another  complete 
failure,  if  he  had  the  exceptional  perseverance  to  keep  at 
it  till  he  had  tried  faithfully  ten  or  twelve  successive  times 
with  complete  failure  every  time,  would  certainly  by  that 
time  give  it  up  and  be  fully  convinced  that  he  had  proved 
that  there  was  nothing  in  it  and  those  who  claimed  they 
effected  results  were  either  deceiving  or  deceived.  But 
how  many  persons  first  learning  to  play  on  the  flute  or 
cornet  have  been  able  with  the  first  ten  or  twelve  puffs  to 
make  any  noise  on  the  instrument  at  all  ?  And  that  is  an 
operation  immensely  more  easy  than  this  of  telepathy  or 
adjusting  and  manipulating  the  mind  so  as  to  recognize 
and  perceive  totally  unaccustomed  kinds  of  impressions. 
Ten  or  a  hundred  complete  failures,  in  either  case,  would 
not  necessarily  prove  the  foat  impossible,  especially  after 
hundreds  of  other  persons  had  fully  succeeded  at  it. 

Again,  what  a  difference  there  is  in  different  minds  as 


368  APPENDIX  B 

to  memory,  reasoning  power,  artistic  sense,  musical 
sense  and  every  other  faculty.  Take  the  cases  of  "  Blind 
Tom"  and  ''Blind  Boone,"  illiterate  negroes  and  prac- 
tically idiots  in  other  directions,  but  able  to  play  the 
most  difficult  and  intricate  pieces  of  music  with  the 
most  complicated  harmony,  after  hearing  them  played 
by  some  one  just  once.  On  the  other  hand  I  have  known 
highly  educated  and  cultured  persons  so  entirely  devoid 
of  musical  sense  that  they  could  not  distinguish  any 
difference  of  pitch  when  different  notes  were  struck  on 
the  piano. 

It  could  not  therefore  be  counted  at  all  strange  or 
unaccountable  if  certain  special  individuals,  like  Mrs. 
Piper  or  Eev.  C.  B.  Sanders  were  found  to  have  a  very 
full  endowment  of  a  faculty  which  others  possessed  iu 
an  immensely  less  degree  or  practically  not  at  all,  or  that 
some  persons  should  easily  succeed  in  experiments  in 
which  others  should  totally  fail.  The  whole  question  is 
one  that  can  only  be  determined  by  candid  investigation, 
and  one  that  certainly  has  been  proved  worthy  of  inves- 
tigation. And  it  is  a  fact  not  without  significance  that 
as  a  rule  those  who  have  investigated  it  the  most  can- 
didly and  thoroughly  have  declared  their  conviction 
that  telepathy  or  direct  thought  transference  is  a 
proved  fact. 

In  the  text  it  was  pointed  out  that  in  the  Bible  there 
are  many  cases  where  men  believed  themselves  to  be 
receiving  communications  from  the  mind  of  God  di- 
rectly. To  a  person  who  believes  that  the  great  mind  of 
God  is  everywhere  immanent  in  the  world  there  would 
be  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  telepathic  communica- 
tions might  be  received  from  his  mind  as  readily  as  from 
any  other,  if  telepathy  is  a  fact.  It  is  also  very  signifi- 
cant, as  pointed  out,  that  in  many  of  the  instances 
where  persons  were  reputed  to  have  thus  received  com- 
munications direct  from  the  mind  of  God  in  a  manner 
similar  to  what  we  call  telepathy  they  were  in  the  en- 
tranced or  secondary  mental  condition,  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  investigators  show  to  be  the  most  favourable 
to  telepathic  perception. 


Appendix  C 

MULTIPLE  PERSONALITY 

ONE  of  the  most  startUng  facts  revealed  by  the 
new  psychology,  and  one  which  has  been  com- 
pletely established  by  it  is  the  possibility  of 
multiple  personality.  In  saying  that  I  am 
speaking  merely  of  the  phenomenon,  without  implying 
anything  as  to  its  explanation  or  the  nature  of  the  fact 
that  lies  behind  it,  which  is  as  yet  very  little  understood. 
It  is  recognized  that  there  can  be  in  a  single  person  a 
state  which,  as  regards  his  own  sensations  as  well  as  the 
appearance  seen  by  others,  seems  practically  the  same 
as  though  there  were  two  or  more  distinct  persons  acting, 
perceiving  and  thinking. 

As  to  the  nature  or  cause  of  the  phenomenon,  we 
have  no  knowledge  as  yet.  At  best  we  can  only  advance 
theories  aud  hypotheses.  Those  who  seek  to  express  all 
mental  phenomena  exclusively  in  terms  of  physical  or 
brain  changes  naturally  consider  that  it  consists  in  some 
interruption  in  the  connections  between  different  centres 
or  regions  of  the  brain.  Some  with  Ribot '  would  go 
so  far  as  to  say  that  there  is  no  real  unity  in  the  human 
individual,  but  only  a  sort  of  "  Colonial  Unity,"  the  co- 
alescing together  in  some  way  of  independent  sensations 
attached  to  different  organs  or  growing  out  of  different 
acts,  in  some  way  that  yields  the  seeming  sensation  of 
unity,  but  any  part  of  this  might  be  separated  off  at  any 
time  just  as  a  piece  might  be  broken  from  a  large  rock 
or  certain  provinces  break  off  from  the  parent  govern- 
ment and  form  a  separate   state. 

To  those  who  are  convinced  as  most  of  us  are  of  the 
existence  of  a  mind  or  soul  as  a  concrete  entity  exer- 

* "  Diseases  of  the  Personality." 


370  APPENDIX   C 

cisiug  guidance  over  and  being  influenced  by  tlie  activ- 
ities of  the  body  or  of  the  brain  cells,  some  other  expla- 
nation would  be  more  plausible,  which  reaches  to  it 
and  takes  it  into  account  as  a  chief  producing  cause. 
Of  course,  unless  we  did  believe  thus  in  the  real  ex- 
istence of  a  human  soul,  there  would  be  no  call  to  discuss 
the  possibility  of  plurality  in  the  divine  Spirit,  for  we 
would  not  believe  even  that  such  a  Spirit  exists. 

But  in  any  case,  the  explanation  is  not  essential.  It 
is  merely  the  observed  fact  that  we  wish  to  use,  namely, 
the  observed  and  experienced  fact  that  this  plurality  of 
consciousness  does  exist.  For  in  comj)aring  these  facts 
with  the  character  of  God  as  portrayed  in  the  Bible  what 
we  find  portrayed  there  is  only  the  recorded  appear- 
ance of  plurality  or  objectivity  of  person  to  person,  with- 
out any  declaration  as  to  the  fundamental  fact  which  lies 
behind  that  appearance.  What  we  find  there  is  the  rec- 
ord, for  instance,  that  Jesus,  while  claiming  identity  Avith 
God,  spoke  of  certain  acts,  feelings  and  purposes  as  being 
acts,  feelings  and  purposes  of  God,  and  yet  as  not  being 
His  own,  or  as  being  directed  towards  Him.  If  we  can 
find,  then,  in  the  case  of  some  man,a  consciousness  which 
persistently  thinks,  feels  and  believes  that  certain  acts  are 
the  acts  of  another  person  from  the  person  who  performs 
the  acts  it  is  conscious  of,  and  also  in  connection  with 
that  same  man  a  consciousness  that  remembers  and  thinks 
of  those  acts  as  its  own  and  has  no  remembrance  of  the 
other  acts  which  the  other  consciousness  remembers,  but 
feels  and  thinks  of  them  entirely  as  those  of  another 
person,  we  have  the  complete  equivalent  of  all  the  plu- 
rality or '' Trinity  "  that  is  expressed  in  the  Bible  with 
regard  to  God. 

There  is  considerable  literature  on  this  subject.  There 
are  a  number  of  quite  noted  special  cases  that  have  been 
observed  and  recorded,  and  considerable  work  done  in 
the  psychological  laboratory,  with  both  hypnotized  and 
normal  subjects,  showing  results  illustrating  this  condi- 
tion or  state.  It  is  a  very  common  phenomenon  in  insane 
subjects.  Almost  any  alienist  will  have  observed  many 
cases,  where  the  subject  feels  himself  to  be  two  persons 
or  that  another  person  is  some  way  inside  of  him  and  in- 
terfering with  his  life.     I  have  not  referred  to  any  of 


APPENDIX  C  371 

these  cases,  however,  but  confined  the  references  entirely 
to  persons  of  sane  and  sound  intelligence  to  avoid  preju- 
dices, and  yet  the  phenomena  of  the  insane  mind  demon- 
strate the  possibilities  of  the  human  spirit  just  as  truly 
as  the  acts  of  the  sane,  and  it  is  the  possibilities  of  the  hu- 
man spirit  that  we  are  investigating,  namely,  whether  it 
is  possible  for  the  human  spirit  to  present  to  itself  and 
to  others  the  ai^pearance  of  plurality,  or  whether,  as 
formerly  taught,'  "It  is  impossible  that  a  person  should 
be  in  part  the  same  and  in  part  different,  because  a  person 
is  a  monad,  and  is  not  divisible  into  parts." 

A  popular  discussion  of  the  subject  will  be  found  in 
The  ]Voman''s  Home  Companion,  November,  1905,  by  Prof. 
J.  H.  Hyslop  of  Columbia  University,  giving  a  number 
of  interesting  examples. 

In  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  October  and  November, 
1908,  a  number  of  examples  and  a  discussion  of  the  sub- 
ject is  given  by  J.  Corbin. 

In  "Diseases  of  the  Personality,"  by  Th.  Eibot,  the 
author  treats  the  subject  entirely  from  the  standpoint  of 
biology  and  brain  structure,  and  seeks  to  find  its  expla- 
nation wholly  there. 

In  "Double  Consciousness,"  by  Alfred  Binet,  the 
author  gives  a  more  general  presentation  of  the  actual 
facts  without  dogmatizing  as  to  their  nature  and  cause. 

In  "The  Subconscious,"  by  Professor  Jastrow,  quite  a 
number  of  cases  are  presented  and  discussed. 

R.  Osgood  Mason,  in  "Telepathy  and  the  Subliminal 
Self,"  also  gives  a  number  of  cases  illustrating  this  phase 
of  abnormal  mental  phenomena. 

In  "Psychotherapy,"  by  Prof.  Hugo  Munsterberg,  a 
number  of  instances  are  presented  and  discussed,  illustrat- 
ing what  the  author  would  call,  "Two  simultaneous 
groups  of  the  content  of  consciousness." 

Prof.  Boris  Sidis,  in  "The  Psychology  of  Suggestion," 
gives  quite  a  thorough  discussion  of  the  subject  with 
many  experiments  both  with  hypnotic  and  normal  sub- 
jects. 

In  a  later  book,  "  Multiple  Personality,"  in  collabora- 
tion with  S.  P.  Goodart,  he  discusses  the  question  in  con- 

>  Cf.  "  Reid's  Essay  on  the  Intellectual  Powers  of  Man." 


372  APPENDIX   C 

nection  with  the  strauge  case  of  Eev.  Thomas  C.  Hanna, 
which  had  come  directly  under  their  observation  and 
been  treated  and  cured  by  them. 

This  last  named  case  will  give  a  very  good  illustration 
of  the  subject,  for  while  this  doubling  of  consciousness  is 
a  very  common  occurrence  in  insane  subjects,  this  case, 
as  well  as  quite  a  large  number  of  other  carefully  observed 
and  well  attested  cases  occurred  where  the  individual 
was  in  all  respects,  with  this  exception,  perfectly  sane 
and  normal. 

Eev.  Thomas  C.  Hanna  was  a  Baptist  clergyman  of 
university  education  and  broad  culture.  One  day  he 
met  with  a  severe  accident,  was  taken  up  unconscious, 
and  when  he  came  to  consciousness  it  was  with  a  mind 
perfectly  blank,  without  any  memory  of  his  previous  life 
or  apparently  any  knowledge  of  anything.  He  was  ap- 
parently, in  every  respect,  mentally  in  the  condition  of  a 
new-born  child.  He  learned  with  great  rapidity,  how- 
ever, and  before  long  could  walk,  talk,  read  and  do  most 
of  the  acts  of  ordinary  life.  As  far  as  a  thorough  exami- 
nation could  detect  there  was  no  lesion  or  abnormality  of 
any  other  kind,  and  he  was  perfectly  healthy,  but  as  far 
as  his  consciousness  indicated  he  seemed  to  have  begun 
his  life  at  the  moment  when  he  first  came  to  consciousness 
after  the  accident. 

From  various  indications  they  were  led  to  believe  that 
the  former  memories  were  not  perished  but  merely  sub- 
merged in  the  region  of  the  "  Subconscious,"  At  length 
as  the  result  of  what  they  would  call  ''  Hypnoidal  treat- 
ment" there  came  a  transformation  and  all  these  old  ex- 
periences came  into  consciousness  again  just  as  in  his  old 
life.  But  at  the  same  time  all  the  experiences  he  had 
gained  since  the  accident  had  entirely  vanished  from  his 
consciousness. 

By  continuing  the  treatment  he  was  again  thrown  into 
the  secondary  state,  with  those  experiences  received  since 
the  accident  alone  in  his  memory  and  the  others  all  van- 
ished. Thus  he  was  made  to  alternate  from  one  to  the 
other  of  the  states,  and  the  memories  of  the  experiences 
he  had  received  in  each  of  the  states  were  all  connected 
together  by  themselves  in  one  separate  stream  of  con- 
sciousness.    All   that  he  experienced  in  one  state,    to- 


APPENDIX  C  373 

gether  with  the  things  experienced  directly  after  the 
accident,  would  form  one  stream  of  consciousness,  as  if 
they  were  the  life  of  one  person  and  his  whole  life,  and 
he  would  know  of  no  other  when  in  that  state.  In  the 
same  way,  all  that  he  experienced  in  the  alternate  state, 
together  with  all  his  experiences  before  the  accident, 
would  form  another  continuous  stream  of  consciousness, 
as  if  that  were  his  whole  life  and  in  this  state  he  knew 
nothing  of  the  things  that  had  happened  in  the  other 
state.  Later,  however,  they  were  able  by  a  peculiar  kind 
of  treatment  to  succeed  in  merging  the  two  streams  of 
consciousness  and  the  two  states  into  one,  so  that  the  pa- 
tient was  wholly  restored  to  his  normal  condition,  with 
all  the  events  of  both  states  in  the  same  consciousness 
and  memory. 

Another  remarkable  and  very  similar  case  is  reported 
by  Prof.  Wm.  James '  under  whose  observation  and  treat- 
ment it  came.  Rev.  Ansel  Bourne  was  a  preacher  living 
in  Greene,  R.  I.  On  January  17,  1887,  after  drawing  a 
sum  of  money  from  the  bank,  he  disappeared.  Suspect- 
ing foul  play,  his  friends  searched  for  him  in  vain  for 
nearly  two  months.  Meantime  he  was  living  quietly  in 
Morristown,  Pa.,  apparently  without  any  knowledge  of 
his  previous  life,  and  was  keeping  a  little  confectionery 
store  which  he  had  opened  there.  He  called  himself 
A.  J.  Brown,  and  as  far  as  known  showed  no  special  pe- 
culiarities. On  the  morning  of  March  14th  he  woke  up 
greatly  frightened,  seeming  unable  to  remember  any  of 
his  surroundings  or  where  he  was.  The  drawing  of  the 
money  from  the  bank  and  the  other  events  in  Greene 
seemed  to  have  occurred  just  yesterday.  To  the  inmates 
of  his  boarding-house  he  said  that  his  name  was  Ansel 
Bourne  and  he  knew  none  of  them  and  knew  nothing 
about  the  confectionery  shop  or  any  of  the  events  of  the 
past  eight  weeks.  They  thought  he  had  gone  insane,  but 
on  communicating  with  the  place  he  indicated  as  his  home 
his  nephew  came  and  identified  him  and  took  him  home. 

When  thus  restored  to  his  natural  state  he  had  no  re- 
membrance of  anything  that  had  occurred  during  the 
time  from  January  17th  to  March  14th.      Later  Professor 

'  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  Vol.  I. 


374  APPENDIX   C 

James  subjected  him  to  hypnotism  to  test  whether  there 
was  any  memory  of  that  period  in  his  subconscious 
memory,  aud  found  that  wheu  thus  hypnotized  he  had 
the  memory  of  all  that  period,  but  he  had  no  memory  of 
his  previous  normal  life  as  Ansel  Bourne.  By  repeated 
treatment  he  could  be  made  to  alternate  from  one  state  to 
the  other.  There  were  two  distinct  memories  aud  two 
personalities  in  the  man.  An  attempt  was  made  to  merge 
the  two  personalities  and  make  the  memories  continuous 
as  in  the  last  mentioned  case,  but  it  was  unsuccessful. 

Another  very  similar  case  was  observed  and  reported  by 
Dr.  Gilbert.  Mr.  A ,  a  prosperous  merchant  and  tin- 
ner, doing  a  good  business,  suddenly  disappeared  from 
home  one  day,  and  his  whereabouts  were  unknown  for 
two  years.  During  that  time  he  was  wandering  about 
the  country,  earning  his  living  working  at  his  trade,  and 
apparently  without  any  knowledge  of  his  previous  his- 
tory. He  was  quietly  working  at  his  trade  in  a  tin  shop 
somewhere  iu  the  South  when  one  day  suddenly  the  con- 
sciousness of  all  his  former  life  before  he  left  home  re- 
turned to  him.  He  now  knew  nothing  of  the  events  of 
the  two  years  in  which  he  had  been  in  the  secondary 
condition,  and  knew  none  of  his  surroundings  or  of  his 
companions  in  the  shop.  He  succeeded  in  returning 
home,  however,  to  the  great  joy  of  his  friends  and  family 
who  had  long  thought  him  dead. 

Professor  James  also  relates  a  strange  case,  which  is 
more  fully  reported  in  Harper'' s  Magazine,  May,  1860. 
Mary  Eeynolds,  early  in  the  last  century,  went  with  her 
parents  out  into  the  then  Western  wilderness  to  make  their 
home.  Soon  after  she  was  taken  with  a  strange  spell  in 
which  she  seemed  like  another  person.  She  was  quite 
different  in  disposition,  and  had  no  remembrance  of  any 
of  the  things  that  had  previously  happened  to  her.  A 
great  many  strange  things  are  related  of  her  actions  and 
condition  while  in  this  state.  After  a  while  she  returned 
to  her  normal  state  with  all  her  normal  memories  but 
with  no  memory  of  what  occun-ed  in  this  state.  But  be- 
fore long  she  returned  to  this  secondary  state  again,  with 
only  its  limited  stream  of  memories.  For  fifteen  or  six- 
teen years  she  thus  alternated  from  one  state  to  the  other, 
in  each  state  having  a  memory  of  the  things  which  had 


APPENDIX   C  375 

occurred  in  the  different  recurrences  of  that  state,  but  no 
memory  of  the  things  that  had  occurred  in  the  other.  At 
the  end  of  that  time  she  seemed  to  settle  down  in  the 
secondary  state,  and  lived  a  normal  life  in  that  state  for 
the  last  twenty-five  years  of  her  life. 

Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Meyers  in  "  Personality  and  its  Survival 
After  Death"  gives  quite  a  large  number  of  cases  of  a 
somewhat  similar  nature.     In  one  case  (reported  by  Dr. 

Azam),  a  girl,  Felida  X ,  who  had  become  moody  and 

melancholy,  suddenly  developed  what  seemed  to  be  a  new 
personality.  In  this  state  her  health  was  much  improved 
and  she  was  more  cheerful  and  bright.  These  two  states 
continued  to  alternate  for  many  years ;  in  the  first  state 
she  had  only  the  memory  of  things  that  happened  while 
in  the  corresponding  state,  and  no  memory  of  the  things 
that  occurred  while  in  the  other,  secondary  state,  but  in  the 
secondary  state  she  had  the  memory  of  both.  The  second- 
ary state  gradually  became  longer  and  longer  in  dura- 
tion, till  finally  it  came  to  occupy  nearly  all  the  time,  the 
primary  state  coming  only  for  a  few  hours  at  a  time  at  in- 
tervals of  a  month  or  so. 

In  another  case  (230  C),  a  young  woman  who  had  be- 
come hysterical  was  treated  with  hypnotism,  which  threw 
her  into  another  personality,  with  a  different  conscious- 
ness and  memory,  but  the  disease  was  entirely  gone.  As 
soon  as  she  returned  to  her  normal  personality  and  con- 
sciousness the  disease  returned.  As  it  was  of  a  very  pain- 
ful and  threatening  character,  to  preserve  her  life  it  was 
deemed  desirable  to  keep  her  continuously  in  the  second- 
ary state. 

Are  all  these  merely  instances  of  a  person  alternately 
forgetting  and  remembering  certain  things,  or  were  there 
really  two  centres  of  consciousness,  the  forgotten  portions 
of  the  life  being  in  the  possession  of  one  consciousness  or 
personality  while  the  other  portions  were  in  the  possession 
of  the  other  ?  Some  of  the  following  cases  seem  to  fully 
cover  this  point,  proving  that  there  were  really  two  cen- 
tres of  consciousness  with  their  separate  contents  co-exist- 
ing at  the  same  time. 

Mr.  Meyers  reports  at  some  length  (230  A)  a  case  from 
the  experimental  laboratory  of  Professor  Janet.  In  the 
case  of  this  subject, — Madame  B ,  the  secondary  state 


376  APPENDIX  C 

was  produced  by  hypnosis.  After  a  time,  however,  it 
developed  a  store  of  memories  entirely  separate  from  those 
of  the  primary  personality  and  began  to  act  spontaneously. 
He  relates  among  others  one  little  trivial  incident  illus- 
trating the  fact  of  both  ''  Personalities  "  or  conscious- 
nesses existing  and  being  conscious  at  the  same  time. 
The  subject  while  in  the  hypnotic  state  was  given  a 
post-hypnotic  suggestion  to  take  off  her  apron  at  a  cer- 
tain time  when  she  woke  up.  After  coming  out  of  the 
hypnotic  state,  at  the  time  indicated,  she  began  to  untie 
her  apron,  but  when  Mr.  Janet  asked  her  why  she  was 
doing  so  she  was  confused,  said  she  did  not  know,  and 
tied  it  on  again.  But  a  moment  later  she  again  untied  it 
and  took  it  off.  Next  day  she  was  hypnotized  again, 
bringing  the  secondary  self  into  consciousness,  and  she 
immediately  asked  him  why  he  had  interfered  when  she 
was  trying  to  take  off  her  apron,  but  adding  in  triumph 
that  she  had  succeeded  in  making  her  (the  No.  1  self) 
take  it  off. 

Another  significant  circumstance  was  noted  at  a  later 
time.  When  her  primary  self  was  occupied  or  distracted 
by  talking  or  other  things  her  hand,  under  the  direction 
of  this  secondary  self,  would  write  letters  and  do  various 
things,  which  the  primary  self  did  not  know  anything 
about.  Still  later  a  third  personality  emerged,  separate 
and  with  a  separate  memory  from  both  the  others.  It 
first  emerged  in  the  form  of  unconscious  acts,  but  later 
was  brought  to  consciousness  by  hypnotism,  and  had  a 
memory  of  these  previous  unconscious  acts.  It  seemed  to 
know  all  the  thoughts  of  both  the  No.  1  and  No.  2  selves, 
but  they  did  not  know  its  thoughts. 

One  of  the  most  noted  cases  of  multiple  personality 
was  that  of  "Miss  Beaucamp  "  which  was  treated  by 
Dr.  Morton  Prince  of  Boston.  It  has  been  quite  fr<^- 
quently  described  by  various  writers  in  the  popular 
magazines  and  elsewhere,  besides  being  fully  reported  by 
Dr.  Prince.'  In  this  case  four  distinct  personnlities 
developed  and  alternated  in  the  control  of  the  one  individ- 
ual.    Some  of  them  knew  nothing  of  the  thoughts  or  ex- 

•  Cf.  Ladies''  Home  Journal,  November,  1908,  Wotnan^s  Home  Com- 
panion, November,  1905,  etc. 


APPENDIX   C  377 

periences  of  any  of  the  others.  Some  knew  the  experiences 
of  some  but  not  of  the  others,  or  knew  the  acts  but  not 
the  thoughts,  but  each  aud  all  of  them  felt  towards  each 
of  the  others  entirely  as  towards  another  person  and 
treated  them  entirely  with  the  same  feeling  of  rivalry  and 
separateness  that  two  ordinary  individuals  might  feel 
towards  each  other.  A  great  many  most  remarkable 
things  are  reported  illustrating  this  entire  feeling  of 
separate  personality  and  rivalry  by  the  separate  con- 
sciousnesses. After  a  long  treatment  Dr.  Prince  ultimately 
succeeded  in  merging  all  four  into  one  personality  with  a 
continuous  memory  uniting  the  content  of  all  four  states. 

Mr.  R.  Osgood  Mason  in  "  Telepathy  and  the  Subliminal 
Self  "  reports  quite  a  number  of  interesting  cases.  In  one 
case,  observed  by  Dr.  Voisin  of  Paris,  five  different  per- 
sonalities alternated  in  the  same  individual.  The  earlier 
ones  had  no  knowledge  of  the  experiences  of  those  that 
arose  later,  though  the  later  ones  did  have  knowledge  of 
the  experiences  of  the  earlier  ones,  yet  as  of  entirely  dis- 
tinct persons. 

He  also  describes  the  case  of  "  Alma  Z "  which 

came  under  his  own  observation.  In  this  case  a  young 
lady,  well  educated,  cultured  and  quite  strong  aud  athletic, 
became  ill,  and  another  personality  developed,  and 
alternated  in  her  life  with  her  original  personality. 
Later  a  third  personality  also  arose.  The  original  per- 
sonality had  no  consciousuess  or  memory  of  anything 
that  occurred  while  either  of  the  other  personalities  were 
dominant,  though  they  seemed  to  know  all  about  its  ex- 
periences as  well  as  their  own.  They  were  entirely 
healthy  and  strong,  were  very  fond  of  the  first  personality 
and  took  great  pains  to  assist  and  care  for  her. 

An  interesting  case,  reported  by  Mr.  Meyers,'  was  that  of 
Miss  Anna  Winsor.  Accompanied  by  a  state  of  ill  health 
various  alternating  personalities  developed,  and  later  it 
was  noticed  that  first  her  toes  and  fingers,  and  finally  her 
right  hand  showed  a  tendency  to  move  automatically  and 
independently  of  her  will.  It  began  to  write,  and  wrote 
things  of  which  the  girl  in  her  normal  consciousness  knew 
nothing.     It  finally  seemed  to  develop  a  complete  per- 

'  "  Personality  and  its  Survival  After  Death,"  237  A. 


378  APPENDIX   C 

sonality  separate  from  the  personality  that  reigued  iu  and 
controlled  the  rest  of  the  body.  It  was  superior  to  the 
normal  consciousness  or  personality  in  some  respects,  and 
gave  it  often  very  sound  advice.  But  the  normal  con- 
sciousness always  felt  towards  it  and  treated  it  as  a  differ- 
ent person,  and  often  mistreated  and  injured  it  as  though 
it  was  entirely  some  one  else.  There  seemed  to  be  here  a 
clear  case  of  the  two  personalities  conscious  and  active  at 
the  same  time.     The  same  was  true  in  the  case  cited  above 

of  Madame  B observed  by  Mr.  Janet.     In  that  case 

the  hand  would  write  letters  when  the  primary  conscious- 
ness was  engaged  iu  other  things  and  its  attention  dis- 
tracted, thus  showing  that  the  two  were  both  active  at  the 
same  time. 

Prof.  J.  H.  Hyslop  mentions  the  case  of  a  Mr.  K 

who  was  troubled  with  a  nervous  affection  and  trembling 
of  his  hand  for  which  no  doctors  could  find  any  relief  or 
discover  a  cause.  On  being  hypnotized  it  was  found  that 
many  years  before  he  had  experienced  great  mental  shock 
and  distress  at  the  time  of  the  death  of  his  wife,  and  his 
subconscious  personality  had  been  continually  brooding 
over  and  agitated  by  it,  though  iu  his  normal  personality 
and  consciousness  it  had  ceased  to  be  thought  of.  A  little 
treatment  and  suggestion  caused  the  subconscious  self  to 
stop  thinking  about  the  trouble,  and  the  nervousness  and 
trembling  of  the  hand  entirely  ceased.  Here,  right  along 
parallel  with  all  his  conscious  life,  this  unconscious  per- 
sonality had  been  carrying  on  its  stream  of  thoughts  and 
feelings  which  had  greatly  affected  his  nervous  system. 

Mr.  Alfred  Binet  in  a  book  on  "Double  Conscious- 
ness" gives  accounts  of  an  extended  series  of  experi- 
ments designed  definitely  to  demonstrate  in  a  simple  yet 
conclusive  manner  the  fact  of  two  centres  of  consciousness 
at  the  same  time  iu  the  same  individual.  His  experiments 
are  first  with  hysterical  persons  who  have  some  auses- 
thetic  region,  as  for  instance  one  hand  and  arm  which  is 
entirely  without  feeling.  Any  excitement,  pricking, 
pinching  or  moving  of  that  hand  is  entirely  unperceived 
by  the  individual,  as  is  fully  proved  by  tests.  The  hand 
is  first  hidden  from  the  sight  of  the  individual  by  a 
screen,  and  perhaps  she  is  made  to  read  or  do  something 
to  entirely  absorb  her  attention.     A  pen  is  then  put  into 


APPENDIX  C  379 

this  auaesthetic  baud  and  it  is  moved  so  as  to  form  some 
letter  or  form.  After  a  brief  interval  the  hand  will 
take  the  suggestion  and  begin  to  move  and  make  the 
same  letter,  and  continue  making  it  for  some  time.  The 
individual  in  her  normal  self,  as  was  proved,  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  moving  of  the  hand  or  that  such  a 
letter  had  been  made,  so  the  making  of  the  subsequent 
letters  must  have  been  caused  by  something  else  other 
than  her  primary,  conscious  will. 

To  make  sure  that  it  was  a  designed  action  and  not 
merely  a  reflex  movement  the  act  was  made  more  compli- 
cated. The  hand  was  made  to  write  Avords  and  whole 
sentences.  As  a  still  more  conclusive  test  it  was  made  to 
write  some  very  familiar  word,  such  as  the  individual's 
own  name,  but  with  a  mistake  in  the  spelling.  In  this 
case  the  hand  as  it  continued  to  rewrite  it  would  hesitate 
at  the  wrong  letter,  and  finally  correct  it,  showing  that 
there  was  a  real  process  of  thought  behind  the  act,  and  it 
was  not  merely  a  reflex  motion.  In  another  instance  the 
hand  was  made  to  write  part  of  a  word  and  would  of  its 
own  initiative  finish  out  the  word,  or  when  a  letter  was 
traced  upon  the  back  of  the  hand  the  hand  would  write 
it. 

As  a  further  proof  that  there  was  reasoning  behind 
this  anaesthetic  writing  he  related  cases  observed  by  him- 
self and  others,  where  an  anaesthetic  hand  concealed 
behind  a  screen,  and  the  subject  perhaps  engaged  in  con- 
versation, would  write  whole  connected  sentences,  and  in 
some  cases  whole  paragraphs  or  essays  on  some  subject. 
All  the  time  the  individual  had  no  knowledge  or  con- 
sciousness of  what  was  going  on,  or  indeed  that  anything 
at  all  was  being  done  by  the  anaesthetic  hand. 

Professor  James  in  his  '*  Psychology"  recounts  the 
case  of  a  Mr.  Sydney  Dean,  wlio,  though  in  a  normal 
condition,  had  the  power  of  writing  automatically  things 
that  his  normal  consciousness  seemed  to  have  no 
knowledge  of.  In  this  way  he  wrote  extended  treatises 
on  philosophical  subjects  which  he  had  no  acquaintance 
with.  When  finished  these  were  automatically  signed 
with  some  other  man's  name.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
there  were  two  entirely  separate  selves,  one  that  did  the 
writing  and  the  other  the  normal  self. 


38o  APPENDIX  C 

Mr.  Binet  gives  some  experiments  directly  to  prove 
that  the  possibility  of  this  doubling  of  consciousness 
exists  in  normal  and  unhysterical  persons.  The  method 
was  to  distract  the  attention  of  the  subject  by  readiug  or 
some  other  way,  haviug  previously  told  her  to  leave  her 
right  hand  entirely  to  him  and  pay  no  attention  to  what 
it  was  doing.  Gradually  he  would  begin  to  move  the 
hand  and  make  it  go  through  some  simple  motion,  as  for 
instance  making  curls  with  a  pen.  When  left  to  itself 
the  haud  would  continue  for  some  time  making  the  same 
kind  of  curls,  sometimes  makiug  as  many  as  a  hundred 
or  more.  The  person  was  then  told  to  notice  what  the 
hand  was  doing,  and  immediately  the  making  of  the 
curls  grew  fainter  and  stopped,  and  when  he  tried  to 
induce  the  same  movements  later  it  was  unsuccessful,  as 
the  mind  seemed  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  something  of 
the  kind.  But  again  he  gave  the  person  a  long  and 
difficult  sum  to  add  up  that  taxed  fully  all  her  attention, 
and  now  he  was  able  to  induce  the  making  of  the  curls 
just  as  at  first. 

The  conclusion  seemed  to  be  plain  that  the  secondary 
centre  of  consciousness  and  action  continued  to  do  the 
acts  that  were  suggested  to  it  when  it  was  not  interfered 
with  and  inhibited  by  the  primary  self,  but  when  the 
primary  self  was  not  intently  employed  it  noticed  the 
attempt  at  movement  in  the  hand  and  inhibited  it.  As 
Mr.  Binet  observes,  the  motion  of  the  hand  was  less 
distinct  when  the  attention  was  directed  to  it  than  when 
it  was  not.  This  is  just  the  opposite  of  the  normal  con- 
ditions or  results,  and  seemed  to  show  that  the  only  act 
of  the  primary  mind  in  this  case  was  to  inhibit  an  act 
that  had  its  source  elsewhere. 

An  interesting  result  was  noted  in  the  case  of  Mr. 
Wm,  L.  Smith,  a  student  in  the  Massachusetts  Institute 
of  Technology.  He  was  given  a  planchette,  the  instru- 
ment of  automatic  writing,  to  write  with.  At  first  he 
made  only  unintelligible  scrawls,  but  after  a  while  two 
results  were  noticed.  The  writing  became  definite  and 
intelligible,  and  the  hand  became  anaesthetic.  Pinch- 
ings,  prickings  or  other  impressions  made  on  it  were  not 
perceived  by  the  normal  self,  but  they  were  perceiAed  by 
the  self  that  operated  the  planchette  and  it  wrote  remarks 


APPENDIX   C  381 

about  them.  Thus  as  soon  as  au  opportunity  was  given, 
a  secondary  self  seems  here  to  have  developed,  acquired 
consciousness  and  activity,  and  also  to  have  appropriated 
to  its  own  use,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  primary  self,  the 
man's  hand. 

Mr.  Boris  Sidis,  in  "  The  Psychology  of  Suggestion," 
Part  II,  gives  quite  an  extended  discussion  of  the  whole 
subject,  with  many  experiments  and  records  of  sponta- 
neous cases.  Quoting  many  of  the  experiments  of  Binet, 
Janet  and  others,  he  adds  many  of  his  own,  all  illustrat- 
ing the  fact,  now  quite  universally  recognized,  of  a 
separate  stream  or  aggregate  of  consciousness  besides 
that  which  we  are  conscious  of  in  our  daily  life.  Among 
others  are  some  very  significant  experiments  in  post- 
hypnotic suggestion.  A  person  is  hypnotized  and  told 
that  on  awaking  and  after  a  certain  arranged  signal  he 
is  to  do  a  certain  thing.  He  does  it  just  as  it  was 
arranged,  and  just  at  the  right  signal,  though  the  waking 
self  has  no  understanding  of  the  case,  perhaps  does  not 
even  know  it  is  being  done,  and  is  engaged  in  other  acts 
at  the  time.  Sometimes  the  arranged  signals  are  made 
very  complicated,  requiring  much  close  attention  and 
thought  on  the  part  of  the  secondary  self  that  notices  them 
and  acts  on  them,  and  yet  they  are  correctly  acted  on, 
though  all  the  time  the  primary  self  is  actively  engaged  in 
talking  or  something  else,  and  does  not  notice  the  signals 
at  all.  In  one  case  the  subject  was  to  do  a  certain  thing 
when  the  operator  should  clap  his  hands  a  given  number 
of  times.  He  clapped  very  faintly  and  at  irregular  in- 
tervals, and  when  questioned  the  primary  self  had  not 
heard  some  of  them  and  gave  a  wrong  number,  and  yet 
the  secondary  self  had  counted  correctly  and  acted  on  the 
right  one.  In  one  case  the  act  was  to  be  done  at  the 
forty-third  clap,  in  another  different  things  were  to  be 
done  at  the  third,  fifth,  sixth,  ninth,  and  sixteenth  claps, 
in  another  when  in  repeating  letters  the  same  letter 
should  be  repeated  twice  in  succession,  in  others  when 
the  sum,  difference  or  product  of  two  numbers  spoken 
should  equal  a  given  number.  All  these  were  perfectly 
accomplished  while  the  primary  self  had  no  knowledge 
of  it.  Such  things  as  these  require  all  the  activities  of  a 
fully  endowed  mind,  and  yet,  since  the  primary  mind 


382  APPENDIX  C 

knew  nothing  of  them,  they  must  have  been  done  by  a 
mind  possessed  by  the  secondary  self,  and  while  the 
primary  self  was  also  active  in  other  things. 

An  interesting  case  was  an  experiment  by  Bernheim 
and  M.  Ligeois,  undertaken  to  illustrate  the  properties 
of  post-hypnotic  suggestion.  The  subject,  a  girl  of 
eighteen,  was  hypnotized  and  told  that  on  awaking 
she  would  not  be  able  to  see  a  certain  person  present. 
This  was  entirely  carried  out,  for  on  awaking  she  saw 
everything  else  but  seemed  to  have  entire  oblivion  to 
him  and  to  everything  that  he  did.  Afterwards,  by 
command  she  was  made  able  to  remember  all  that  he  had 
said  and  done,  showing  that  some  consciousness  had  per- 
ceived him  all  the  time.  In  another  case,  under  a  simi- 
lar post-hypnotic  suggestion,  the  subject  did  not  see  the 
person  or  anything  that  he  did  or  said  in  the  first  person, 
but  if  he  made  a  suggestion  impersonally  in  the  third 
person  it  would  be  perceived  and  acted  upon. 

In  these  cases  the  two  selves,  the  normal  and  the  sec- 
ondary or  hypnotic  self  seemed  to  divide  up  the  store  of 
impressions  that  the  senses  brought,  and  by  the  agreed 
terms  of  the  partnership  the  secondary  self  appropriated 
all  those  that  came  from  this  person  while  the  primary 
self  took  all  the  remainder.  That  there  were  really  im- 
pressions received  from  this  person  who  seemed  not  to 
be  seen  was  proved  by  the  fact  that  they  were  afterwards 
restored  to  consciousness  when  the  command  was  given. 
The  same  is  shown  in  other  cases  of  post-hypnotic  sug- 
gestion, as  for  instance  in  the  case  cited  above  where  M. 
Janet's  subject  was  made  to  untie  her  apron  without  the 
primary  consciousness  perceiving  it,  yet  when  hypnotized 
the  next  day  the  secondary  consciousness  remembered  it. 
Another  proof  is  given  where  persons  are  hypnotized 
and  told  that  on  waking  they  will  not  remember  any- 
thing they  have  done  but  will  be  able  to  write  it,  and 
when  they  awake  have  no  remembrance,  but  are  able 
with  the  automatic  writer  to  write  it  all  out  perfectly. 

All  these  experiments  show  the  essential  point  of  the 
two  selves  acting  at  the  same  time  in  the  individual. 
The  normal  self  is  active  in  the  normal  way,  perceiving, 
acting,  speaking,  and  at  the  same  time  the  secondary 
self  is  also  active,  perceiving  things  that  the  normal  self 


APPENDIX   C  383 

does  not  perceive,  discriminating  what  things  it  may 
appropriate  as  its  snare,  also  acting  or  writing  down  the 
things  that  it  has  experienced,  of  which  the  normal  self 
has  no  knowledge.  By  a  great  variety  of  such  simple 
experiments  as  these  it  is  fully  proved  that  the  two 
solves  or  two  centres  and  groups  of  consciousness  may  be 
existent  and  active  at  the  same  time  in  the  same  indi- 
vidual. When  we  turn  then  to  the  cases,  such  as  Mr. 
Hanna,  Ansel  Bourne,  Miss  Beau  camp  and  many  others, 
where  the  secondary  self  persisted  for  long  periods  of 
time  performing  all  the  functions  of  a  normal  person  in 
a  perfectly  natural  and  ordinary  way,  alternating  in 
time  with  the  primary  self,  the  inference  is  legitimate 
that  in  these  instances  also  while  the  one  self  was  in  con- 
trol the  other  self  was  not  obliterated  or  non-existent,  but 
was  in  existence,  only  not  in  control  of  the  organism.  In- 
deed many  circumstances  in  some  of  these  cases  directly 
confirm  this,   as  in   the  case  of  Miss  Beaucamp,  Alma 

Z and  others  the  secondary  self  did  seem  to  know 

and  be  concerned  by  the  things  done  or  experienced  by 
the  primary  self,  though  always  as  things  belonging  to 
another  person. 

The  question  may  arise, — Are  there  in  all  of  us  all  the 
time  these  two  complete  selves  or  centres  of  conscious- 
ness and  action  which  we  see  in  hypnotism,  one  of  them 
lying  dormant  through  the  greater  part  of  the  life  but 
able  to  be  called  up  into  consciousness  and  action  by 
suitable  means  ?  Or  is  the  explanation  that  there  is 
normally  just  one  self  and  one  consciousness  existent, 
but  there  is  a  residual  something,  or  some  other 
agency,  which  is  able  to  form  a  new  centre  of  conscious- 
ness and  new  self  in  certain  contingencies'?  Or  is,  per- 
haps, the  true  solution  a  combination  of  both  these  con- 
ceptions? The  fact  that  three,  four  or  more  selves  or 
centres  of  consciousuess  are  capable  of  developing  in 
certain  cases  would  seem  to  favour  this  last  supposition. 

But  in  any  case  the  answer  to  this  question  is  not  essen- 
tial to  our  argument.  As  previously  stated,  it  is  suffi- 
cient for  all  our  purposes  that  there  is  merely  the  appear- 
ance of  more  than  one  self  or  centre  of  consciousness 
observed  in  the  life  of  the  same  individual  in  well  au- 
thenticated cases.     Merely  that  in  well  attested  instances 


384  APPENDIX   C 

the  individual  himself  feels  and  thinks  that  the  agent 
that  performs  certain  of  his  acts  is  not  the  same  agent 
that  performs  certain  others  of  his  acts,  merely  that  the 
appearances  are  safficient  to  warrant  the  personality 
active  at  a  certain  time  in  feeling  that  certain  acts  of  the 
same  individual  proceed  from  a  separate  agent.  If  we 
have  found  that,  and  it  certainly  cannot  be  questioned 
that  we  have,  we  have  found  the  complete  equivalent  in 
human  experience  of  all  the  plurality  that  is  asserted  in 
the  Bible  teaching  as  to  the  divine  Trinity. 


